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1

ABSTRACT
AlI“NATICN FROM’FRJEDOM
by Karen Gernant

The intent in writing this thesis was to investi-
gate the nmitings of Karl Earx, Paul Tillich and Sigmund
Freud as they relate to the general subject of aliena-
tion.

Although they are concerned with somewhat different
parts of the problem, all three writers appear to believe
that man's alienation is essentially a lack of human free-
dom.

Marx sees the alienation in the context of capi-
talism, with both the laborer and the capitalist losing
their human qualities in a capitalist society. Tillich
sees the alienation in its religious context, as noted
by the estrangement of man from other men and from God.
Freud sees the alienation in its psychological context,
particularly in the conf_ict between the eg and the id.

Marx and Tillich each offer solutions. Marx be-
lieves that the revolt of the working class and an even-
tua stateless society will result in reconciliation,
while Tillich believes that reconciliation can only re-
sult when God accords grace to wen, Neither solution

seems a workable one.

Karen Gernant

If alienation exists in any or all of these con-
texts, it s ems likely that very few persons are entirely
alienated. Whether persons are alienated at all seems

to depend upon whose classification one accepts.

ALIENATEON FROM FREEDOM

By

Karen Gernant

A THE IS

Submitted to
Nichigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

EASTER OF ARTS

Department of Political Science

1963

-.\~ »

- i “i ,/
f) r

\

g:

o
-

LI

. 6

My interest in the subject of alienation began some

7.7
1/

four years ago in a course at aestern Michigan University
entitled "Christianity and Modern Thought." Dr. Cornelius
Loew, the professor, deserves credit for awakening my
curiosity particularly about Paul Tillich. The interest
lay dormant until a couple of years later, in Dr. Alfred
G. Meyer's course in Marxism and Communism which I took

at Michigan State University, when I was struck by the
coincidence of thought between Karl Marx and Paul Tillich.
When the time came to choose a thesis topic, I was once
again attracted to the theme of alienation. Thus grew

the current paper -- this time, with still another ad-
dition, that of Sigmund Freud.

To Dr. Meyer, who agreed to be the thesis chairman,
goes much appreciation and thanks for his patience and
understanding. Thanks also should be accorded to Dr. Alan
P. Grimes, who consented to serve as chairman of the com-
mittee in the absence of Dr. Meyer, and to the other mem-

bers of the committee, Dr. Robert Scigliano and Dr. Samuel

Krislov.

As always in txis kind of situation, too many
people to name deserve thanks just for being available
for discussion and relief when it was needed. Special
thanks go to my parents, who have always appeared con-
fident that the road to the thesis would finally be

finished.

K.G.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACIfi-JOWLBDGITENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Chapter

I. IT‘ITRODUCT]-O :N o o o o o o o o o o o o o

01H

II. KARX: ALIERATION IN CAPITAL . . . . . .
III. TILLICH: JELIGIOUS ALIENATION . . . . 26
IV. FREUD: PSYCHOLOGICAL ALIEEATION . . . 47

V. CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
BIBLIOGnAPHY . . o . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

iv

INTRODUCTION

Just what is alienation? It is a term used with
wide applications, and thus, it is necessary to state
several definitions.

One author views alienation as loneliness and
claims that loneliness is characteristic of twentieth
century life.1 Another comments that "modern man...
is in a perpetual state of doubt about the nature of
himself and of the universe in which he lives."2

David Riesman notes that man today knows no real
commitment to anything. He suggests that many people
". . . are not passionately attached to their lives,
but rather cling to them."3

Alienation can be defined as apartness. This, in
turn, may be broken down into several "separations,"

depending upon one's views as to which values are more

important. It may mean separation from oneself, other

 

1Margaret Mary Wood, Paths of Loneliness: The
Individual Isolated in Modern Society (New York: Col-
umbia University Press, 19537, p. viii.

 

2Peter L. Berger, Invitation to Sociology: A
Humanistic Perspective (Garden City: Anchor Books,
1963), p. 50.

3David Riesman, Individualism Reconsidered (Glen-
coe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1954}, p. 112.

l

men, family, or God. It could also mean separation
from a job, the nation, or from purposes, goals and
freedom. Alienation may mean a feeling of loneli-
ness and emptiness.

It seems possible that the lack of involvement
in politics by a substantial portion of the American
adult population may be related to the concept of
alienation.

Clinton Rossiter writes that "there is little
sense of 'belonging' among American voters, few signs
of 'shared concern' with other men of like political

mind."4

He also points to the fact that, of approxi-
mately 100 million Americans who could have voted in
1956, 62 million persons actually did vote.5 One
reason which Robert A. Dahl cites to explain lack of
political participation is that some persons may think
there is little likelihood of their votes or participa-
tion making any difference in elections.6

Perhaps some citizens must first concern them-
selves with their lives as individuals, rathar than as
voters. They may need to consider first their working

lives; and their psychological lives. It may be possi-

ble for them to become more strongly committed to

 

4Clinton Rossiter, Parties and Politics in
America (Ithaca, New York: Cornell‘UniversityfiPress,
I§367;'p. 25.

5Ibid., p. 30.

6Robert A. Dahl, Modern Political Analysis (En-
glewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1963), p. 60.

politics, after they have become accustomed to commit-
ments in other areas of their lives.

This paper will deal with the views of three
writers on the subject of alienation, for the problem
of alienation is one encompassing enough that it is un-
likely that any one discipline working alone will be
able to penetrate the area.

It is the common contention of Karl Marx, Paul
Tillich and Sigmund Freud that man is alienated from
freedom, although, for each of them, this alienation
from freedom is seen in a somewhat more concrete form.

For marx, the alienation is seen principally in
the dichotomy between the worker and the capitalist.
His setting is that of work, for he believes that man's
freedom is dependent upon the possibility of using hu-
man faculties/in the working process. ,

Tillich sees alienation against the setting of
religion. His major concern appears to be man's es-
trangement from God and from man, as exemplified by
man's objectification.of both God and man. Tillich
would have man attain an "I—Thou" relationship with
God and man, as opposed to an "I-It" relationship.

Freud's primary concern appears to be the con-
flict between the ego and the id, or between reason

and instinct, within individuals. This consideration

also involves the conflict between the life and death

impulses within persons. On the one hand, individuals
desire to remain alive, but on the other hand, each
successive step to remain alive ultimately negates it-
self in death.

It is to these three writers that we turn now

for their insights into man's alienation.

CHAPTER II

TARX

AhIEhATlON IN CAPITAL

In Caaital, Karl Marx discuSses at length a
phenomenon which has been termed today "alienation."
Both laborer and capitalist are immersed in a system
which leads to theirealienation. Alienation in Qgpif
[pal may be seen as the absence of individual freedom
or choice. Both the laborer and the capitalist are
caught in a system which does not allow them to meet
each other or their colleagues as human beings.
Rather, they m at each other as objects.

To attain an overall view of the concept of
alienation, it is important to review Harx's economic
perspective on the subject.

For Marx, it is capitalism that brings about
man's alienation from humanity. As society has be-
come more industrial, technology has developed to such
a point that the working man, according to Marx, has

become a cog in the machine of capitalism.

lMy discussion of alienation in Marx's Ca ital

is a departure from what is usual in this area. It is
more usual to consider that there is a definite gap be-
tween the early Marx and the later Farx. The Economic-
Philosophic Manuscripts of 184% is the work usually re-
ferred to in discussing Harx and alienation. For a
thorough discussion of this, see Robert C. Tucker,
Philosophy and Nyth in Karl Marx (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, lQSI).

 

Manufacture and production presuppose that there is
something to be manufactured that people want. The desired
item is termed a commodity. The commodity has value be-
cause human labor is mixed in it. The quantity of labor
determines the amount of value. In order to have value,
the commodity must be utilitarian; that is, it must have
use-value. Independently of use-value, it must have ex-
change value, which is a quantitative measurement.

The value of one commodity can be expressed only in
relation to another commodity. Thus, we might say that
ten handbags have the same value as one formal dress. Hu-
man labor-power becomes value when it is merged in the
form of an object, a commodity.

A commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply
because in it the social character of men's labour
appears to them as an objective character stamped
upon the product of that labour; because the rela-
tion of the producers to the sum total of their own
labour is presented to them as a social relation,
existing not between themselves, but between the
products of their labour.

One kind of commodity, then, is the kind that is
manufactured specifically for the purpose of exchange.
But there are two other ways to view a commodity.

Any object is potentially a commodity. In other
words, as soon as it has no utilitarian value for its

owner, it has reached an alienable state, or a state of

potential exchange. All that is necessary then is that

 

2Karl Marx, Capital: A Critigpe of Political
Econom , edited by Frederick Engels and revised by
Ernest Untermann, translated by Samuel Moore and Ed-
ward Aveling (New York: The Modern Library, 1906),
v01. I, Pa 850

the owner actually alienate it from himself. It is im-
plicit in capitalism, according to Marx, that all owners
with commodities not useful to them will try to sell them
(or alienate them) to persons for whom the commodities
would serve a useful purpose.3
The second additional point that must be made here
is that a commodity, in Marx's terminology, does not have
to be a tangible object. It may be, instead, the labor—
power itself, which is sold by its owner. According to
Marx, the individual sells it for a defined period of
time only. Selling it outright would be tantamount to
enslaving himself permanently. The value of labor-power
is determined by the cost of living for the laborer.
The laborer gives credit to the capitalist, since the
laborer's wages are given to him after he has completed
his work for a given period of time.
If, as we saw on the preceding pages, commodities
are produced because people want them, then there must
be a way to acquire them. The sale of commodities is
simplified by the use of a universal exchange medium,
money. Meney, as an external object, is also a commodity
which can become the property of an individual. The cy-
cle, then, is this: commodity to money to commodity.
All commodities are non-use-values for their owners,
and use-values for their non-owners. Consequently,
they must all change hands.4
However, money need not be an ingredient in.the

transaction, for the credit system makes it possible to

 

4Ibid.. p. 97

sell before the purchaser is able to pay the full price
of the commodity. This leads to the creditor-debtor re-
lationship. The money exists in the promise of the pur-
chaser to pay for the article. Yet, the commodity itself
changes ownership. The original owner retains the same
exchange value. In the chain of events, he has, first,
the exchange value of his own commodity; second, the money
for which he sold the commodity; and third, the commodity
on which he may spend the money.

Commodities, then, constitute the reason for manu-
facturing. we turn next to the mode of manufacturing.

In order to produce more efficiently, a division
of labour is essential. Parts of an assembly-line, per-
sons are restricted to the specific work of producing a
part of the finished product. The result is " . . . a
productive mechanism whose parts are human beings."5
Criticizing this practice, Marx writes that the " . . .
constant labour of one uniform kind disturbs the in-
tensity and flow of a man's animal spirits, which find
recreation and delight in mere change of activity."6

Separating the laborer from the result of his
labor is the "instrument of labour" or the "conductor
of his activity."7 Thus, the human is separated fromi

the object which he has a stake in producing.

 

51bid., p. 371
61bid., p. 574
7Ibid., p. 199

 

 

 

An immeasurable interval of time separates the
state of things in which a man brings his labour-
power to market for sale as a commodity from that
state in which human labour was still in its in-
stinctive stage. We presuppose labour in a form
that stamps it as exclusively human. . . At the
end of every labour-process, we get a result that
already existed in the imagination of the labourer
at its commencement. He not only effects a change
of form in the material on which he works, but he
also realises a purpose of his own that gives the
law to his modus operandi, and to which he must
subordinate his will . . . The less he is attrac-
ted by the nature of the work, and the mode in
which it is carried on, and the less, therefore

he enjoys it as something which gives play to his
bodily and mental powgrs, the more close his atten-
tion is forced to be.

The machine, in contrast to the person, becomes
paramount in the manufacturing process. Machines may
wear out, but when they are replaced, they must be re-
placed by identical mechanisms, or, when they become
obsolete, they must be replaced by improved mechanisms.
The persons who operate the machines, however, can be
replaced by other persons able to push the right button
at the right time.

Use of the machine means less of individuality
or creativity for the labourer. In his own eyes and
in the eyes of the capitalist, he becomes part of the
machine. Machines make the work less difficult, but
Marx sees this as a disadvantage rather than as an ad-
vantage.

The lightening of the labour, even, becomes a sort

of torture, since the machine does not free the
labourer from work, but deprives the work of all

 

81bid., p. 198.

10

interest. . . By means of its conversion into an
automaton, the instrument confronts the labourer,
during the labour-process, in the shape of capital,
of dead labour, that dominates, and pumps dry, liv-
ing labourepower. The separation of the intellec-
tual powers of production from the manual labour,
and the conversion of those powers into the might
of capital over labour, is . . . finally completed
by modern industry erected on the foundation of ma-
chinery. The special skill of each individual in-
significant factory operative vanishes as an infini-
tesimal quantity before the science, the gigantic
physical forces, and the mass of labour that are
embodied in the factory mechanism, constitute the
power of the "master."

When machines "learn" to tend themselves, they
become man's competitors, because the laborer's function
necessarily becomes less important or even vanishes a1-
together. Marx believes that the conflict between ma-
chinery and worker, and between capitalist and worker,
leads the workers eventually to revolt en masse against
machinery. This, he thinks, is most decisive when new
machinery replaces the need for individual men to work
in handicrafts. Unemployment then leaves the labor
force at the mercy of the capitalists. Children, too,
are employed to learn a single task and are taught
nothing which would help them secure other jobs when
their current tasks are taken over by automation.

Machinery, then, according to Marx, is the foe of.
the working man. But machinery alone cannot be a foe.i
The force behind machinery is the capitalist. I

The object to be produced is conceived in the

mind of the capitalist in order that he may alienate

 

91bid., p. 462.

11

it from himself through the exchange medium. It is
something which, for the sake of expedience, will have
the labor of many individuals mixed in it. The laborer
expends energy for the ends of the capitalist, for the
product is the property of the capitalist. The product
fulfills the desires of the capitalist, in that it is
an object with exchange value. Its value is greater
than the sum of the values of the commodities used in
the production process. That is, it has surplus-value.

Surplus-value can be introduced into the commodity
only through the living labor-power, because constant
capital (means of production, raw materials, instruments
of labour) is static in value. Variable capital resides
alone in the labor-power expended by workers, for -- in.
addition to working for his subsistence -- the laborer
also works for the capitalist, thus creating surplus-
value.

The rate of surplus-value is . . . an exact expresl
:ion for the degree of exploitation of labour-powgr
y capital or of the labourer by the capitalist.

For the capitalist, then, profit results from the
exploitation of the laborer to the greatest possible
degree. If there are twenty-four hours in the day, the
laborer works X number of hours to earn his livelihood
and Y number of hours to earn the livelihood of the

capitalist. He is left then with Z hours, which are

 

lOIbid., p. 241.

12

theoretically free for recreation. However, he may
have to expend most or all of them in the processes

of eating and sleeping in order to repeat the work pro-
cesses the next day.

Hence it is self-evident that the labourer is
nothing else, his whole life through, than labour-
power, that therefore all his disposable time is by
nature and law labour-time, to be devoted to the
self-expansion of capital. Time for education, for
intellectual development, for the fulfilling of
social functions and for social intercourse, for
the free play of his bodily and mentally activity,
even the rest time of Sunday . . . -- moonshine!

. . . Capital oversteps not only the moral, but
even the merely physical maximum bounds of the
working day . . . It is not the normal maintenance
of the labour-power which is to determine the
limits of the working day; it is the greatest
possible expenditure of labour-power, no matter
how diseased, compulsory, and painful it may be,
which is to determine the limits of the labourer's
period of repose.

Marx's capitalist does not worry if the length
of the working day is physically and mentally taxing
to the point of early death. His lack of worry stems
from the knowledge that there is an excess population.
It is this standby population which makes it possible
for the capitalist to have his employees work beyond
the time needed for minimum subsistence. The nonr
workers constitute a threat to the workers. The workers
are aware that they are dispensable. In addition, the
capitalist knows that the laborers, from animal instinct,

will continue to propagate the species and will also

 

llIbid., p. 291.

13

continue to do whatever necessary to stay alive. Man,

as laborer, has not only the function of working each
day, but he has also the function of reproducing himself,
both on a day-to-day basis and on a generation-to-genera-
tion basis, in order that the capitalist will always have
a working force. Capitalism " . . . forms a disposable
industrial reserve army, that belongs to capital quite

as absolutely as if the latter had bred it at its own
cost . . . It creates . . . a mass of human material
always ready for exploitation.”12 Furthermore, capi-
talists may purchase a greater amount of labor-power

by hiring women rather than men, children rather than
adults, and the unskilled rather than the skilled. The
population remains in excess of the numbers the capi~
talists can absorb into industry.

In order to make a profit, the capitalist's main
objective is to shorten the "subsistence" part of the
worker's day and to lengthen the part of the day that
yields the surplus-value. One way to accomplish this
is to have a collective working arrangement, which re-
sults in more efficient production than to have either
the same number of persons working individually or one
person working the same total number of hours. The
capitalist's task is to direct and supervise the co-
operative working venture, with the most possible

surplus ~value his goal.

 

13Ibid., p. 693.

14

The wage scheme provides another possibility for
shortening the "subsistence" part of the working day .
Wages, Marx says, end any necessity for talking of neces-
sary labor and surplus-labor, for, on the face of it, all
labor is paid labor. Unpaid labor is not apparent on the
surface of the wage system. Hourly wages are fixed by
dividing the daily value of labor-power by the set num-
ber of hours of the working day. But the capitalist re-
tains the option of employing the worker for less hours.
"The capitalist can now wring from the labourer a certain
quantity of surplus-labour without allowing him the la-
bour-time necessary for his own subsistence."l:5 Another
method of determining wages is a contract between the
capitalist and the head laborer for so much money per
piece produced. The exploitation in this plan, then,
is a "double" one, with both the capitalist and the head
laborer exploiting the laborers.

The capitalist-laborer dichotomy is reflected in
this statement from Marx:

On the one hand, the process of production inces-
santly converts material wealth into capital, into
means of creating more wealth and means of enjoyment
for the capitalist. On the other hand, the labourer,
on quitting the process, is what he was on entering
it, a source of wealth, but devoid of all means of
making that wealth his own. Since, before entering
on the process, his own labour has already been
alienated from himself by the sale of his labour-

power, has been appropriated by the capitalist and
incorporated with capital, it must, during the

 

13Ibid., p. 597.

15

process, be realised in a product that does not be-
long to him. Since the process of production is
also the process by which the capitalist consumes ,
labour-power, the product of the labourer is inces—
santly converted, not only into commodities, but
into capital, into value that sucks up the value-
creating power, into means of subsistence that buy
the person of the labourer, into means of production
that command the producers. The labourer therefore
constantly produces material, objective wealth, but
in the form of capital, of an alien power that dom-
inates and exploits him; and the capitalist as con-
stantly produces labour-power, but in the form of a
subjective source of wealth, separated from the ob-
jects in and by which it can alone be realised; in
short hi produces the labourer, but as a wage-la-
bourer. 4

The working class is not the only group which
Marx sees as alienated. Yearning for profit leads the
capitalist to more and more accumulation which, in turn,
leads toward centralization. From.Marx's viewpoint, this
leads further to an alienation of the capitalists them-
selves, in that they become dependent upon one another
as objects united in the common goal of centralization.

Although the capitalists have the common goal of
accumulation, this in itself leads to competition among
them. Each of them strives to be the one, or the part
of the group of capitalists, who can amass the most and
thus eliminate the smaller capitalists. Alienation ex-
ists, in other words, not only between the capitalist
and the laborer, but also between capitalist and capi-
talist.

The part of social capital domiciled in each par-
ticular sphere of production is divided among

 

l4Ibid., p. 625.

16
many capitalists who face one another as indepen- 15
dent commodity-producers competing with one another.
The capitalist is not only set apart from other
capitalists, but he is also split into two parts within
himself, for he both owns capital and employs capital.
The employer of capital, even when working with his
own capital, falls apart into two personalities,
into the mere owner of capital and the employer of
capital; his capital itself, with reference to the
categories of profit which it yields, falls apart
into capital property outside of the process of
production and yielding interest of itself, and
capital in the process of production yielding profig
of enterprise through its function in the process.
Another phase in the capitalist alienation is
identified by the fact that some capitalists are not
industrial capitalists, but rather are money-capitalists.
They are in a position to lend the money which makes
possible capitalist production. Productive capital forms
an object for interest-bearing capital, just as wage-
labor forms the object for productive capital..ll7
Part of the industrial capitalist's alienation
from the money-capitalist results from the fact that
‘the industrial capitalist acts frequently as a laborer
himself; that is, he performs supervisory tasks within

the framework of his industry. In acting as a super-

visor, he becomes at least for the moment a wage-laborer,

 

15Kar1 Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political
Economy, edited by Frederick Engels and revised by Ern-
est ntermann, translated by Samuel Moore and Edward
Aveling (London: Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 1889),
Vol. I, p. 639.

16Karl Marx, Capital, edited by Frederick Engels
(Chicago: Charles H. Kerr and Co., 1909), Vol. III,
p. 441.

l7Ibid., p. 446.

17

with the advantage of paying himself his own wages.

The vanishing of individualism for fine capitalist
is evident, too, in the emergence of stock corporations.
With joint ownership of industries, individual capitalism
becomes less defined and more submerged to a state of
anonymity. The persons who inVest in capitalist enter-
prises cannot identify part of the production as a.direct
result of their own investments; the investments are seen
as a total sum, as are the products, or results of the in-
vestments.

Credit offers to the individual capitalist . . . ab-
solute command of the capital of others and the prop-
erty of others, within certain limits, and thereby of
the labor of others. A command of social capital,
not individual cinital of his own, gives him command
of social labor. 8

The credit system appears as the main lever of over-
production and overspeculation in commerce solely
because the process of reproduction . . . is here
forced to its extreme limits, and is so forced for
the reason that a large part of the social capital
is employed by peOple who do not own it and who push
things with far less caution than the owner, who
carefully weighs the possibilities of his private
capital, which he handles himself . . . The produc-
tion of values by capital based on the antagonistic
nature of the capitalist system permits an actual,
free, development only up to a certain point, so
that it constitutes an immanent fetter and barrier
of production, whiiB are continually overstepped by
the credit system.

Accumulation of industrial capital is dependent

on the increase of the components of reproduction in

 

lBIbid., pp. 519-20.

191b16., p. 522.

18

capital. Similarly, the person who lends money is de-
pendent on the growth of industrial accumulation so that
more money may be lent, and returned with greater inter-
est. The interest comes from the industrial capitalist,
whose existence as a capitalist depends on the money-
capitalist. "The loan capital accumulates at the ex-

pense of both the industrial and commercial capitalists.”2O

Another form of capitalist alienation is reflected
in the dichotomy between the land-owner and the renter
of the land. Renting the land, the land-owner has as
his object the capitalist. The capitalist gives up a
portion of his profit to the person who owns the land.
The renting capitalist may then exploit the land which
he rents.2l Thus, agricultural capitalism is not un-
like capitalism in manufacturing.

According to Marx, there is also alienation on an
international basis. The bourgeoisie of one nation is
pitted against the bourgeoisie of another nation, and
yet they are interdependent. One country needs the
products of another, and vice versa.

Medern bourgeois society with its relations of
production, of exchange and of property, a society
that has conjured up such gigantic means of produc-
tion and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no
longer able to control the powers of the nether

world whom he has called up by his spells. For many
a decade past the history of the industry and commerce

 

ZOIbid., p. 590.
ZlIbid., p. 725.

19

is but the history of the revolt of modern produc-
tive forces against modern conditions of production,
against the property relations that are the condi-
tions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and of
its rule . . . In these crises there breaks out. . .
the epidemic of overproduction. Society suddenly
finds itself put back into a state of momentary bar-
barism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war
of devastation had cut off the supply of every means
of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be des-
troyed. And why? Because there is too much civili-
zation, too much means of igbsistence, too much in-
dustry, too much commerce.
The theme of alienation permeates Marx's Capital.
In each instance, as Marx views it, it is an alienation
which negates the possibility of human freedom. The
estrangement exists at many levels: capitalist-worker;
worker-machine; worker-worker; within the worker; worker-
family; parent-child; worker-commodity; capitalist-com-
modity; capitalist-capitalist; nation-nation. The capi-
talist works to accumulate capital and to eliminate
competitors in the process of centralization. The la-
borer works to build capital for the capitalist. Marx
sees no way for the laborer to manifest his own indi-
viduality. Working half or most of hours of the day
for the capitalist and for his own subsistence, the
worker loses the ability to be a person for the rest
of the day. His spare- ime hours are not his own, but

are the capitalist's. Through eating and sleeping,

 

22Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist
Manifesto, edited by Samuel Beer (New York: Appleton-
Uentury-Crofts, Inc., 1955), p. 15.

 

20

the laborer preserves himself for the repetition of the
production process the next day. Through feeding his
wife and children, he preserves their lives for'wmrk.
Through propagating the Species, he creates a new work-
ing force, adding to the surplus population. And through
all of these activities, according to Marx, the laborer
utilizes only animal instincts. Human characteristics
of creativity and thought have no place in the laborer's
WOrldo
If we accept Marx's statements, then, the worker

has lost the spark of life which might characterize him
as human.

The worker puts his life into the object; but now

his life no longer belongs to him but to the object

. . . The life which he has conferred on the ggject

confronts him as something hostile and alien.”

What would make man human? Marx believes that

man has the potential of consciousness, first in society
and then within individuals. He believes man is capable
of imagination. He believes man is capable of making
history, but he believes that man has not yet made human
history. As one critic writes:

Man has made bad history because, in the dialectics

of production, he has never been in a position to

prevent the means of production from entering into

conflict with the relations of production. Specifi-

cally, so preoccupied has he been with the immediate

and practical exigencies of production and assuring

from the available means of production, a preferred
livelihood for himself as against his fellows, that

 

25Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts
of 184g (Mbscdw: Foreign Languages Publishing House,
no date), p. 70.

he ha not been able to anticipate and control the
long term historical and human consequences of that
material production itself. As a result, the objec-
tive factor of production, nature and technics, in
the long rin acts counter to rather than in support
of the sibjective factor, human needs and their ap-
propriate social organization.“*

Consciousness involves, according to Alfred G.
Meyer, "man's awareness of himself and his environment,

4 1. . ,. ,. . '25 H
or, better, of himself witnin his env1ronment.’ moyer
then expands this definition to "purposiveness," or man's
ability to conquer environment. If man were able to con-
quer environment, then he would be able to use it to fur-
ther his humanity, rather than being subjected to the
alienation from freedom which is environment in Marx's
framework.

Without the potentia"ities of consciousness, 1m-
agination and human history, man would be -- in Marx's
eyes -- nothing but another animal. Because Narx be-
lieves man to have these potentials, however, he attempts
an explanation of man's predicament, and a solution.

Presumably, Marx's solution will bring about men's
fr edom ant humanity. George Lichtheim writes:

Now man cannot develop fully unless he is free, but
tnis must not be done at the expense of others as

in classical antiquity where work was gerformed by
slaves; for both parties to such a relationship are

 

24Vernon Venable, Human Nature: The Marxian View
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), p. 147.

25Alfred G. Meyer, Marxism: The Unity of Theory
and Practice (Cambridge: Harvard University Tress,
1954), p. 14.

22

inevitably dehumanized. Freedom, to be genuine,
must be universal, hence the individual is free
only if all other men are free and able to develop
as "universal beings." 6

Marx's solution to man's alienation is contingent
upon the proletariat becoming conscious of itself as a
commodity, becoming conscious of the fact that it is de-
humanized. His solution centers in the hope of a prole-
tarian revolution. Forced labor should be abolished to
free man for human pursuits:

The proletarians, if they are to assert themselves
as individuals, will have to abolish the very con-
dition of their existence hitherto . . . namely,
labor. Thus they find themselves directly opposed
to the form in which, hitherto, individuals have
given themselves collective expression, that is,
the State. In order, therefore, to assert theme
selveszas individuals, they must overthrow the
State.

Once this has occurred, it is assumed that men
will take turns at working and will perhaps be able to
perform.one type of work part of the time and another
type of work another part of the time. They will not
be limited to single tasks, but will be able to work
at a variety of human pursuits. Implicit in this as-
sumption is that man will answer to inner dictates,
rather than to external dictates. In other words, man
will reflect in his work his own interests and abili-

ties, rather than the interests of the capitalist.

 

26George Lichtheim, Marxism: An Historical and
Critical Study (New York: *Frederick A. Praeger Pub-
lishers, 1961), p. 43.

37Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German
Ideology. Parts I and III, edited by R. Pascal (New
Yark: International Publishers, 1947), p. 78.

Marx's solution, then, represents an ideal: a

world where labor is not forced; a world where man can
fulfill his human potentialities as opposed to his ani-
mal functions; a world where labor may become human, in
that it will be performed willingly; a world where man's
creativity, consciousness and imagination will emerge;
a world where equality will.;revail, a world without ex-
ploitation of one class over another. Ideally, it would
be a world of human freedom, a turning away from aliena-
tion.

A study of Marx's views on alienation raises sev-
eral serious questions.

It seems to me that Marx's underlying assumption,
that laborers are unhappy and are exploited under capi-
talism, needs support. How does he know that they are
unhappy? What makes him think that, given their choice,
these persons would prefer to follow the human pursuits
he has set forth? I think, too, that Marx's terms need
to be more clearly defined. Why is the work that he
describes necessarily not human? Why does he make hu-
manity primrrily dependent upon creativity, thought
and imagination?

Furthermore, why must creativity and thought be
part of a man's working life? Why should not these
human faculties be developed during a person's leisure
time? In short, why must all humans fit Marx's pattern

of humanity in order to fulfill themselves as human?

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24

It seems to me, too, that Marx was so enamoured
of the idea of a proletarian revolution that he did not
think objectively of alternative solutions. A revolu-
tion is not the only means to achieve happiness and free-
dom, if those elements are missing. For instance, labor
{ unions today bargain for the rights of their members.
This is a way to achieve wages and hours conducive to
the development of human functions, if persons choose
to use their money and time in that way. Similarly,
government control of monopolies may be viewed as a.way
to prevent any one capitalist from attaining too much
control over other capitalists.
- To suggest the overthrow of the state and thus a
stateless society is to advocate anarchy. What grounds
does Marx have for preferring anarchy to government?

How does he think a stateless society will assure or

protect freedom.for individuals? How will it end aliena-

V .f ( .;-.. i]
. I I . .‘ . Afivva'.‘ 1-1/ 'l‘l"‘ ‘ ‘7‘. ’ ~ ~‘ I"1 ' ‘ I l
. c.-L'1“‘ k’ :"1 \~t.v ‘

tion and exploitation?
It seems, furthermore, that automation makes it
inevitable that the worker will be separated from his
product in any society where there is automation. Marx
might better have concentrated on the dehumanization in-
herent in automation, rather than placing the blame for
dehumanization on capitalism:?§a socialist society which

has automation waild result in as much dehumanization

of the worker as a capitalist society would.

25

Marx's scheme appears to be based on a predetermined

.4-

f- *L 7-
’xpelief: that the laborer is exploited by the capitalist.

6‘

The arguments he uses are made to fit the pattern which

I

— r" ‘ I ”-9 ," r:
Hm“ (fajflmrhet .3

he has already decided will emerge.

CHAPTER III

TILLICH
RELIGIOUS ALIENATION

Tillich's concern is man's estrangement from God,
from.other men, and from himself. Like Marx, Tillich
finds that man is alienated, in that there is a lack of
freedom. For Tillich, however, this is a problem not
to be resolved by man himself.

For Tillich, estrangement is a necessary fact of
existence itself. To exist is necessarily to be es-
tranged. Man has no choice in the matter, according to
Tillich, for man is part of the estrangement which be-
gan with "original sin" or with the "fall” of man. He
describes the fall as the "transition from essence to
existence.."1

The transition from essence to existence is the
original fact . . . We do exist and our world with
us. This is the original fact. It means that the

transition from essence go existence is a universal
quality of finite being.

lPaul Tillich, S stematic Theolo (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, I957), VOI. II, p. 29.

21bid., p. 36.

 

26

27

Tillich says that man is bound by finite freedom:
One can say that nature is finite necessity, God is
infinite freedom, man is finite freedom. It is fin-
ite freedom which makgs possible the transition from
essence to existence.

Man is free, in so far as he has the power of con-
tradicting himself and his essential nature. Man is
free even from his freedom; that is, he can surrender
his humanity.

This, however, is not complete freedom, but rather,
limited -- or finite -— freedom. How does Tillich know
that man is in a state of finite freedom? Or, perhaps
a more answerable question would be: How does Tillich
know that man knows he is in a state of finite freedom?
The answer lies in man's concern and anxiety. His aware-
ness of his finitude is expressed through anxiety. And
Tillich finds hope, I think, in the anxiety of man.

Tillich offers three characteristics of estrange-
ment: unbelief; hubris; and concupiscence. Unbelief is
man's turning away from God. Hubris involves man's
failure to recognize his finitude and man's consequent
attempt to become infinite. It is man's attempt to be-
come divine, which involves the lack of recognition of
his inability to join the circle of divinity. In Til-

lich's words, "It is sin in its total form, namely, the

other side of unbelief or man's turning away from the

 

31bid., p. 31.
4Ibid., p. 32.

28

divine center to which he belongs. It is turning to-
ward one's self as the center of one's self and one's
world."5 Concupiscence is man's desire to draw all of
reality into himself. It is complete self-centeredness.
For Tillich, estrangement may be equated with sin:
Sin is a universal fact before it becomes an indi-
vidual act, or more precisely, sin as an individuaé
act actualizes the universal fact of estrangement.
Sin is estrangement; grace is reconciliation.7
Man's freedom is bound by his destiny and thus
it is finite freedom. man may turn his world into an
object or he may turn himself into an object. At the
moment he does either, however, he loses both. In other
words, as soon as he holds the world at arm's length as
an object, he himself becomes "object" or "thing" or
"dehumanized." Conversely, if he makes of himself an
object, his world, too, becomes an object.
Tillich discusses what man could do if he were
completely individual and human. He would take part
in the world, through perception, imagination and ac-
tion. These are functions which would make man truly
human, but Tillich acknowledges that these functions
are only potential functions:
In the state of estrangement man is shut within

himself and cut off from participation. At the
same time, he falls under the power of objects

 

5Ibid., p. 50.
61bid., p. 56.
71bid., p. 57.

29

which tend to make him into a mere object without
a self. If subjectivity separates itself from ob-
jectivity, thg objects swallow the empty shell of
subjectiV1ty.

Tillich's man cannot by himself overcome this es-
tranged existence. Man must necessarily exist and if he
exists, he must necessarily be estranged. If then he is
part of existential estrangement (or finite freedom),
he would negate his existence to attempt to reach his
essence. In other words, for Tillich, man is bound up
in the fact of estrangement. Man cannot escape "orig-
inal sin," for if man escapes it, he loses existence as
man. Tillich argues that man is estranged from the
"ground of being" (God) and yet that he is not completely
out off from him. If the severance were complete, man
would not ask questions about God. The fact that he quesé
tions implies the possibility of reunion or reconcilia-
tion. Yet, the reunion or reconciliation cannot be one
of man's own making:

Grace does not destroy essential freedom, but it

does what freedom under the conditions of exis-

tence cannot do, namely it reunites the estranged.
The implication is that grace must be accorded man from

God. It is impossible to reach salvation on one's own.

The answer for Tillich lies in the concept of "The New

 

81bid., p. 65.
9Ibid., p. 79.

30

Being," or the Christ. Tillich says that the Christ ap-
peared as the mediator between God and man:
Mediation is reunion. God is the subject, not the
object, of mediation and salvation. He does not need
to be reconciled to man, but he asks man to be recon-
ciled to him.
Therefore, if the Christ is expected as mediator and
savior, he is not expected as a third reality between
God and man, but as him who represents God to man.
He does not represent man to God, but shows what God
wants man to be. He represents to those who live un-
der the conditions of existence what man essentially
is and therefore ought to be under these conditions.
Appearing as the Christ, Jesus was subject to and
part of man's finite freedom. Yet, says Tillich, he was
able to exist under such conditions without being con-
quered by them. He was able, for instance, to resist
temptation. Tillich uses the symbol of the "Cross of
Christ" as representing his subjection to existence, and
the symbol of the "Resurrection of Christ" as represent-
ing his victory over existence.ll
For the Christ, essential union never gave way to
the dichotomy experienced by the rest of mankind. Re-
union for the Christ was not a necessary possibility,
for the union itself never disintegrated. For the rest
of mankind, though, Tillich would say that reunion with

God is necessary to reach reunion with life.12

 

lOIbid., p. 93.
11Ibid., p. 152.

lZPaul Tillich, The New Being (New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1955), p. ll.

 

lO

31

Or, more precisely, he would say that the two are syn-
onymous. He would not give the two statements a cause-
and-effect relationship, nor would he imply that one re-
union is used only as a means to reach the end of the
other reunion.

Necessary to the redemption of human life is heal-
ing, for man feels both insecurity and anxiety at all
times. Healing, made possible by faith, is reunion not
only with oneself, but also with others.

Where one is grasped by a human face as human . . .
there New Creation happens: Ngnkind lives because
this happens again and again.
Healing, like grace, comes from outside man, comes from
the ground of being.
Healing means reuniting that which is estranged,
giving a center to what is split, overcoming the
split between God and man, man and his world, man
and himself.‘4
In some degree all men participate in the healing
power of the New Being. Otherwise, they would have
no being. The self-destructive consequences of es-
trangement would hayg destroyed them. But no men
are totally healed.

Tillich gives the New Being characteristics which

are diametrically opposed to those of estrangement:

faith replaces unbelief; surrender replaces hubris;

love replaces concupiscence.

 

l51pm” p. 23.

14Tillich, systematic Theology, Vol. II, op. cit.,
p. 166.

l5Ibid., p. 167.

332

He weaves into his scheme the life-death dichotomy;
the joy-pain dichotomy; and love as a thread which touches
all. In his pattern, life and death are related of neces-
sity, for death is inherent in life itself and in living.
In the process of being alive, man continually moves to-
ward the inevitable end, death. Man cannot negate this
trend, for to do so would mean the immediate end of life.
if man wishes to live, then, he accepts the fact that
each minute of life is another minute closer to death.
Life and death are then inseparably mixed in all moments
of time. Similarly, joy and pain are not at o;posite
ends of a pole. Ian does not know joy one moment and
pain the next; the two are usually intermingled, some-
times indistinguishably.

There are people who believe that man's life is a
continuous flight from pain and a persistent search
for pleasure. I have never seen a human being of
whom that is true. It is true only of beings who
have lost their humanity, either through complete
disintegration or through mental illness.
Nan attains joy when he meets persons for themselves,
rather than when he meets persons in order to gain his
own ends.18 "In fulfillment and joy, the inner aim of
life, the meaning of creation, and the end of salvation,

. . 19 . .
are atoaineo." Blessedness, as tne lasting transcend-

ing component of joy, makes it possible for joy to

 

l6Ibid., pp.56-7.
l7Ibid., p. 144.

18
Ibid., p. 145.

19Ibid., p. 151.

33

encompass sorrow and pain without negating its own ex-

istence.
When one is faced by the final separation brought
by death, love intervenes to heal:
Every death means parting, separation, isolation,
opposition and not participation . . . Love over-
comes separation and creates participation in which
there is more than that which the individuals in-
volved can bring to it. Love is the infinite given

to the Binite. . . Love, not help, is stronger than
death.2

Love is not something which can be called up at
will. It is an emotional state. love works toward
uniting the separated. It is seen asza movement toward
reunion of the estranged; it links what has been split

2

in order that the return to "essential oneness" 1 can
be accomplished. Where the split is the sharpest, the
force of love is the strongest. Tillich states that
"the greatest separation is the separation of self from
self."22 The borderline character of the triumph over
separation is reflected in this statement:

Fulfilled love is, at the same time, extreme happi-

ness and the end of happiness. The separation is

overcome. But without the separation there is no

love and no life. It is the superiority of the

person-to-person relationship that it preserves the

separation of the self-centered self, and neverthe-

less actualizes their reunion in love. The highest
form of love . . . is the love which preserves the

 

2OIbid., pp. 172-75.

ZlPaul Tillich, LoveJ Power and Justice (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1954}, p. 25.

22Ibid., p. 25.

34

indivggual who is both the subject and object of
love.

The presupposition of essential reunion with the
ground of being is man's ability to relate to others as
men, rather than as "others." It is the IrThou rela-
tionship in which Tillich would have men participate.
Man's realization of his humanness occurs when he meets
a "then."

Man becomes man in personal encounters. Only by
meeting a " hou" does man realize that he is an
"ego". . . The other one, the "thou," is like a wall
which cannot be removed or penetrated or used. He
who tries to do so, destroys himself. The "thou"
demands by his very existence to be acknowledged as
a "thou" for an "ego" and as an "ego" for himself.
This is the claim which is implied in being. Man .
. . can try to transformahim into a manageable ob-
ject, a thing, a tool. But in doing so he meets
the resistance of him who has the claim to be ac-
knowledged as an ego. And this resistance forces
him either to meet the other one as an ego or to
give up his own ego-quality. Injustice against the
other one is always injustice against oneself. The
master who treats the slave not as an ego but as a
thing endangers his own quality as an ego. The slave
by his very exigience hurts the master as much as he
is hurt by him.

Justice is the road to reunion. Tillich categori-
zes the following principles of justice. Justice must
be adequate, in that laws must be up-to-date, must fit
the times in which we live. Justice must contain.equali-
ty; men's essential equality must be made actual equality.
Justice involves the concept of personality, with persons

treating others as persons rather than as objects or

 

23Ibid., p. 27.
24Ibid., pp. 78-9.

35

things. Justice must incorporate liberty, for slavery
goes against the very idea of reconciliation.

Those who have being must make the claim for jus-
tice.- Not to do so would be to lose justice by default.
Justice must be what Tillich calls ”tributive or pro-
portional" justice.25 And it must also take the char-
acter of creative or transforming justice.26

What is the criterion of creative justice? In or-
der to answer this question one must ask which is

the ultimate intrinsic claim for justice in a be-

ing? The answer is: Fulfilment within the unity

of universal fulfilment. The religious symbol for
this is the kingdom of God.

Justice . . . means creative justice and is ex-
pressed in the givine grace which forgives in or-
der to reunite. 8 -

Justice is a part of love; without justice, love

is self-surrender. "Love reunites; justice preserves

29

what is to be united." Love and justice are the key

to salvation; love and power, to creation.

The power of God is that He overcomes estrangement,
not that he prevents it; that He takes it, symboli-
cally speaking, upon Himself, not that He remains
in a dead identity with Himself . . . This is the
unity of love and power in the depth of reality
itself, power not only in its creative element but
also in its compulsory element agg the destruction
and suffering connected with it.

 

Ibid., p. 63.

 

Ibid., p. 64.
27Ibid., p. 65.

 

 

Ibid., p. 66.
291616., p. 71.

 

 

Ibid- 0- , pp. 112-13.

 

56

From what does Tillich's concern stem? His ob-
vious primary concern is the estranged character of man.
His principal vehicle for examination of the concern is
religion. But Tillich, for whom religion pervades all
man, finds that nothing is irrelevant. Everything,
either positively or negatively, is touched by religion.

Essentially the religious and the secular are not
separated realms. Rather they are within each other.
But this is not the way things actually are. In
actuality, the secular element tends to make itself
independent and to establish a realm of its own. And
in opposition to this, the religious element tends
to establish itself as a special realm. Man's pre-
dicament is determined by this situation. It is the
situation of the estrangement of man from his true
being. One could rightly say that the existence of
religion as a separate realm is Bhe most conspicu-
ous proof of man's fallen state.

Tillich's immediate frame of reference is the
present. Since he views the present as embracing every-
thing that has gone before, however, his scope is neces-
sarily a widened one. The present is a transition from
past to future and leans constantly toward the future.

Creation makes man dependent on his origin, and
yet, man is independent through individuality.52

The question is not whether selves exist. The ques-
tion is whether we are aware of self-relatedness . .
. Self-relatedness is experienced in acts of nega-
tion as well as in acts of affirmation. A self is

not a thing that may or may not exist; it . . 3
logically precedes all questions of existence. 3

 

31Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture, edited by ,
Robert C. Kimball (New York: Oxford University Press,
1959), pp. 41-2.

 

32 Paul Tillich, The Interpretation of History,
translated by N. A. Rasetzki and Elsa L. Talmey (New
York: Charles Scribner'S Sons, 1936), p. 206.

35Paul T 1llich, Systematic T eolo (Chicago:
The University 1of ChiceTEO‘Press, IBSI), 301 I, p. 169.

57

What does it mean to be, to exist? The fact of ex-
istence points to the fact of participation in being.
Tillich suggests that the seriousness of things iinllus-
trated by all beings' participation in the ground of be-
ing, and conversely, that insecurity is mirrored in the
separation from the ground of being.34 In Tillich's
scheme, the person sees objectively and yet is aware of
being a part of thrt which he sees.35 No person can
legitimately make God part of the subject-object struc-
ture, for in doing so, humanity denies God as the ground
of all being.36 As being-itself or the ground of being,
God has not existence, but is "beyond essence and exis-

"37 T1

tence. ne quality of God must be understood, rather,

as a transcending quality, going beyond the forces which

. . . 38
limit human beings.

Being, mixed with freedom, creates meaning:

The new, which occurs whenever history occurs, is
meaning. In creating meaning, history rises above
itself. For meaning . . . is realized by freedom
and only by freedom; in creating meaning, being
gains freedom from itself, from the necessity of

 

54Tillioh, The Integpretation of Histopy, op. cit.,
p. 271.

55Tillich, Systematic Theology, Vol. I, op. cit.,
p. 170.

561bid., p. 172.

371bid., p. 205.

38161d., p. 257.

38

its nature . . . Freedom is the leap in which history
tranggresses the realm of pure being and creates mean-
1mg.
Tillich suggests that meaning, in the form of fulfill-
ment, has occured at different points in history for dif-
ferent groups: for the Jews, in the exodus from Egypt;
for the Marxists, in the appearance of the proletariat;
for the Christians, in.the Christ. Particularly is he
concerned with the latter example. The appearance of
the New Being, in the Christ, is a fulfilled moment of
time; it is "kairos."
The consciousness of the kairos is dependent on
one's being inwari$y grasped by the fate and des-
tlny of the t1me.

Being is not only a positive quality, but it is
also viewed as a negative quality in that it may in-
clude non-being. This gives human life the character
of finitude, of enclosing within itself the possibility
of non-being. Tillich suggests that, while being carries
with it the potential of non-being, being will prevail
over non-being; the infinite will shine through the fin-
ite.41 The more separation within the self that can be
overcome, the stronger the power inherent in human be-

ing. ”The more reuniting love there is, the more con-

quered non-being there is, the more power of being

 

39Tillich,-The Interpretation of History, op. cit.,
p. 273.

40Paul Tillich, The Protestant Era, translated by
James Luther Adams (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1948), p. 48.

41Tillich, Love,_Power and Justice, op. cit.,
p. 380

39

there is."4fi2 In Tillich's language, power of being is
God, or infinitude.

Although finitude is characteristic of all living
beings, man is separated from the others in that he alone
is capable of awareness of finitude. Awareness, of

course, does not carry with it the possibility of man's

creating his own escape from it.43

Chains of finitude are the boundaries of time and
space, which are found in the fact of mankind's histori-
cal existence. The overriding temporal scheme is the
line of life which draws man gradually from birth to
death, in an irreversible pattern. Nonetheless, the
circular historical character of space makes possible
the repetition of the life-to-death cycle.

The direction of time is deprived of its power by
the circular motion of continuous repetition. The
circle, this most expressive symbol of the predom-
inance of space, is not overcome in the realm of
life.

In man the final victory of time is possible.
Man is able to act toward something beyond his
death. He is able to have history, and he is able
to transcend even the tragic death of families and
nations, thus breaking through the circle of repe-
tition.towards something new. Because he is able
to do so, he represents the potential victory of
time, but not always the actual victory. What
has happened in nature unconsciously happens in
man and history cagsciously: The same struggle and
the same victory.

The despair, anxiety and insecurity which charac-

terize our lives are symptoms of what Tillich terms the

 

42Ibid., p. 49.
43Tillich, Theology of Culture, p. 98.
44Ibid., p. 31.

40

45
"human boundary-situation." Nan encounters this situa-
tion when he is threatened, not by death, but by the
knowledge that he is separated. It is not a physical
threat, not a threat that can be settled by death, but
a transcending threat which would remain so even in the
knowledge and the fact of death.46 The possibility of
such a situation arises because man is not one with the
ground of being.
Man is in a genuine sense the threatened creature
because he is not bound to his vital existence, be-
cause he can say "yes" and "No" to it . . . Anyone
who raises a question about true reality is in some
way separated from reality; whoever makes a demand
upon reality presupposes that it is not at hand.
Man must raise the question, however, and must make
the demand; he cannot escape this fate, that is, the
fate of being man.
The fate in which man is immersed embodies freedom.
However, freedom and necessity are bound together in
H 48 I O 0 O
the scope of late. With freedom comes the p0551b111ty
of contradiction and, thus, estrangement within each
man -- both as an individual and as a part of continu-
ing humanity. The concept of original sin indicates
the self-contradictory character of man: the fall which
pulled man from essence to existence and which cannot be
overcome, for conquest of original sin would negate ex-

istence for man. Man, then, is bound to self-estrange-

ment. His enslavement to self-estrangement is greater

 

45Tillich, The Protestant Era, p. 197.
46Ibid., p. 197.
471616., p. 197.

48161d., pp. 3-4.

41

than his freedom as man. Historically, man has the
character of determining himself, as Opposed to beings
without thought-processes. But historically, too, fate
steps in and determines man. Nan may, for instance, de-
vise work-saving mechanisms in his role of "freedom."
But fate enters the picture and turns the instruments
against him in such a way as to make men, the motive
power behind mechanization, lose his prime role and be-
. . , , , . . .. . 49
come SUDJBCCGd to tne mecnanlzatlon wnlcn he created.
While personality represents either freedom or po-

tential freedom, it has within it room for the submer-
gence of self:

The distortion of the relationship between per-

sonality and thing appears not only in the subjec-

tion of filings to personality but also in the sub-

jection of personality to things. Man who trans-

forms the world into a universal machine serving

his purposes has to adapt himself to the laws of

the machine. The mechanized world of things draws

man into itself and makes him a cog, %riven by the

mechanical necessities of the whole.
Personality -- or the character of person-ness, human-
nes -- becomes possible only in the I-Thou encounter
with another person. Tillich does not deny that some
persons have managed to retain personality, but he clearly
implies that the masses of persons are no longer person-

alities.

Reunion is the ultimate goal in Tillich's eyes.

 

4911616., p. 186.

 

501bid., p. 123.
511bld., p. 123.

42

Working toward this is the immediate goal of theonomy,

which he defines as "the free devotion of finite forms
0

5”

to the eternal." He views theonomy as a transcend-

ence and mediation between autonomy and heteronomy:
Autonomy asserts that man as the bearer of uni-
versal reason is the source and measure of culture
and religion -- that he is his own law. Heteronomy
asserts that man, being unable to act according to
universal reason, must be subjected to a law, strange
and superior to him. Theonomy asserts that the su-
perior law is, at the same time, the innermost law
of man himself, rooted in the divine ground which is
man's own ground: the law of life transcends man,
although it is, at the same time, his own . . . A
theonomous creature expresses in its creations an

ultimate concern and a transcending meaning.not as
something strange but as its own spiritual ground.

53
Reunion is potential in reality, and is actual in sym-
bolism. Its potentiality manifests itself in the pos-
sibility of moving away from self-centeredness toward
union with another, a possibility which Tillich calls
"ecstasy": "Only through ecstasy can the ultimate
power of being be experienced in ourselves, in things
and persons, and in historical situations."
Symbolically, reunion takes place in the communion
service. Here, persons partake of bread and wine, thus

lending concrete reality to the idea of the Christ.

Symbolically, then, the Christ is present in flesh and

 

52Paul Tillich, The Religious Situation, transla-
ted by H. Richard Niebuhr (New York: Meridian Books,
Inc., 1956), p. 216.

55Tillich, The Protestant Era, pp. 56-7.

54Ibid., p. 79.

43

blood which are consumed to nourish bodies which are in
reality in existence today. Symbolism allows man to par-
ticipate in the living reality of the Christ.55
In discussing estrangement, or alienation, Tillich
does not confine himself to the strictly religious situa-
tion. He uses other categories, as well, to express man's
dehumanization. He suggests, for instance, that there is
a divine-demonic split:
To come into being means to come to form. To lose
form means to lose existence. At the same time,
however, there dwells in everything the inner inex-
haustibility of being, the will to realize in itself
as an individual the active infinity of being, the
impulse toward breaking through its own, limited
form, the longing to realize the abyss in itself . .
. Demonry is the form-desggoying eruption of the
creative basis of things.

While the divine is characterized by creation, the de-

monic is characterized by destruction and is most recog-

nizable when creativity exists to some degree.

Tillich identifies capitalism and nationalism as
being demonries in this day and age. The demonic ele-
ment of capitalist society, he says, is recognized by
the class formation which has separated human beings

57
from one another before the eternal. Man has become

accustomed in this consumer society to want things to

the point that his desire for things is insatiable.

 

551bid., pp. 96-7.
56Tillich, The Interpretation of History, pp. 84-5.
57Tillich, The Religious Situation, p. 110.

44

Tillich sees the present-day economy as ruling man's
life: "its consequence is bondage to time and hence
also the lack of time for attention to the eternal."58
Under capitalism, individuals do not act as indi-

viduals, but instead act as other persons do. Conformity
has forced persons into a pattern of acting alike, look-
ing alike, thinking alike. Tillich claims that the mec-
hanization of the individual in Europe is reflected in
the production process; in America, he says, it is re-
flected more in the consumption process. He relates the
dehumanization to one of the forces which he believes
made it necessary: war. Americans have

. . . not only standardized machines but also

standardized human beings, conditioned by radio,

movies, newspapers, and educational adjustment for

a subpersonal conformity to this immense process.

The ease with which, in the dictatorial countries

as well as in America, the whole productive machine,

including its human tools, has been brought into a

unity for one purpose -- the war -- shows its com-

pletely impersonal and meaningless character.59

The other demonry Tillich sees in our time is that

of nationalism. Tillich indicates that nationalism
would be acceptable, but for the mixture of the demonic
in it which leads nations to view themselves as superior
and other nations as inferior. The destruction implicit

in demonry also leads to war between nations.60

 

581bid., p. 109.
59Tillich, The Protestant Era, pp. 262-65.
solbido, p. 223.

45

Tillich believes that part of mankind's hope as
mankind lies in the new generations. Persons must be
made aware of their inhuman character. If persons can
understand that they are not whole human beings, that
they lack the depth and creativity which underlie com-
plete human life, then the present-day trend may be re-
versed. If they ask meaningful questions, hope for the
salvation of man as man is present.

Tillich claims for man, too, that churches hold a

promise for redemption, in that they have not ceased to

. . . . . 61
reSist dehumanization and mechanization.

They have preserved the message of an ultimate mean-
ing of life which has not yet been exhausted and
which, as Christians believe, never can be exhaus-
ted. However, this message can become effective for
the coming Spiritual reconstruction only if it is
brought into the center of the present situation as
an answer and not as another problem pied up with
the general Spiritual disintegration.

Tillich's greatest hope lies in man's own possible
awareness:

‘Men are still able to feel that they have ceased to
be men. And this feeling is the presupposition of
all Spiritual reconstruction during and after the
war, for, in this feeling, humanity makes itself
heard in its longing for a meaning of life, for
community and personality . . . Fortunately, no
generation of adults has ever succeeded in impos-
ing its pattern of life completely on the following
generation. This is one 8% the greatest hopes for
spiritual reconstruction.

 

03

1Ibid., p. 267.

 

O3

21bid., p. 267.

 

O)

51bid., p. 267 .

 

46

Tillich leaves man's final destiny in the hands of
God. Beyond doing his best to achieve "I-Thou" relation-
ships, man cannot do anything to effect his own recon-
ciliation with God, or with other men. God must extend
grace to man, in order for man to be reunited with the
ground of being. man is left in a state of doubt and
perplexity as to whether the reunion will actually oc-
cur. Tillich offers no tangible solution, then, to the

problem of man's alienation.

CHAPTER IV

FPTUD

PSYCHOLOGICAL‘ALIENATION

For Freud, too, the alienation of man from free-
dom is one seen both in individual and in somewhat more
universal terms. He is most concerned with individual
man, but he also gives some emphasis to the repetitive
process of life. Not unlike Tillich and Marx, Freud
tends to follow a life-to-death pattern in his analysis.

Residing in all individuals, according to Freud,
are an ego, an id, a super-ego and libido. All indi-
viduals also have both consciousness and the uncon-
scious.

The ego is that which organizes the mental proces-
ses; consciousness is attached to the ego. Perceiving
the external world, the ego has the characteristics of
rationality and reality. The id is characterized by
its encompassing of the passions, in contrast to the
ego's comnon sense.1 The super-ego, or ego ideal, ex-

erts coercion over the ego and thus acts as the master

 

1Sigmund Freud, "The Ego and the Id," Complete
Psychological works of Sigmund Freud, translated by
James—Strachey (London: The Hogarth Press and the In-
stitute of Psycho-Analysis, 1961), Vol. XIX, p. 25.

47

48

of the ego. The ego strives to please its super-ego,
as a child would strive to please a parent. Thus, the
super-ego binds man to a condition of unfreedom. The
energy of instincts which are classified as love are
termed "libido."2

Freud discusses the individual's existence in)
terms of its twofold character: existence for self,
which he considers to be principally sexuality; and ex-
istence as part of the entire chain of life.3

His overriding interests in the individual as in-
dividual are the individual's striving to stay alive,
and his sexual pattern. These two forces are described
as "primal instincts."4 The goal of instincts is satis-
faction, and the vehicle that leads to this satisfaction
is an object, which may be part of the subject's own
bodv or something extraneous to it. Sexual instincts
are first attached to self-preservative instincts. This
would mean, then, in Freud's view, that an infant being
nursed is fulfilling the instinct to preserve himself
through a sexual attachment to the woman nursing him.
Or, in the more far-reaching point-of-view, the sexual

instincts of the adult are a necessary part of the over-

all desire of mankind to perpetuate itself in further

 

ESigmund Freud, Group_Psychology and the Analysis
of the Egg, translated by James Strachey'(New York:
Liveright Publishing Corp., 1951), p. 57.

'5Sigmund Freud, "On Narcissism: An Introduction,"
CPWSF, Fol. XIV, p. 78.

'4Sigmund Freud, "Instincts and Their Vicissitudes,"
CPTSF, V01. XIV.

49

generations.
Biology . . . shows . . . that two views . . . may'
be taken of the'relation between ego and sexuality.
On the one view, the individual is the principal
thing, sexuality is one of its activities and sexual
satisfaction one of its needs, while on the other
view the individual is a temporal and transient ap-
pendage to the quasi-immortal germ-plasm, whic is
entrusted to him by the process of generation.
Looking at the individual first, Freud sees sexual
instincts beginning in early childhood, with the male
child identifying with the father and regarding the
mother as a sexual object to be attained. Hostility
to his father manifests itself when the child notices
that his father stands in the gap between him and his
mother. He wants to replace his father in the relation-
ship to his mother. When the Oedipus complex ends, he
may either identify strongly with the mother or the
' I
father. The former route will lead to homosexuality,
while the latter route is the more masculine and normal
path. It is also possible that the father-hostility
may be transferred to an animal, with the fear of the
animal constituting an animal phobia.
The ego is modified by such identifications and
an ego ideal, or super-ego, arises. The super-ego then
represses the Oedipus complex.

J

The super-ego retains the character of the father,
while the more powerful the Oedipus complex was

 

5Ibid., p. 125.

50

and the more rapidly it succumbed to repression

(under the influence of authority, religious

teaching, schooling and reading), the stricter

will be the domination of the super-ego later

on -- in the form of consciencg or perhaps of

an unconscious sense of guilt.
When the ego-ideal is established, the Oedipus com-
plex is overcome and the ego becomes subject to the id.
The super-ego represents the internal world, while the
ego represents the external world.

The id, originally, contains all libido. The ego
attempts to capture object-libido and to become an ob-
ject of love for the id, thus leading to narcissism.

Able to act as a censor, the ego represses when
it will not acknowledge an instinctual cathexis in the
id. Repression is carried on at all times; even though
"asleep" at night, the ego works to censor dreams. When
remembered, dreams appear to be alien, to be from another
world. The content of dreams is manifested in anxiety,
but the latent content of dreams is wish-fulfillment.
Usually dreams reflect happenings or thoughts of the
very'day of the dream, and include within them the
wishes of the ego. In order for a dream to be produced,
a conscious wish must have been reinforced by an uncon-

scious wish. Thus, the dream results from the system of

the Unconscious, whose aim iswish-fulfillment.7

 

6Freud, "The Ego and the Id," pp. 54-5.

7Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, trans-
lated by A. A. Brill (New York: Random House, 1950),
p. 428.

«fl

51

The pleasure principle, which dominates much of

Freud's discussion of sexual instincts, gives way to
and is replaced by the reality principle. This results
from the ego's instincts of self-preservation. It is
necessary for man to tolerate the unpleasure in life by
appealing to the reality principle. From consciousness,
man perceives excitations from the outside world and
feels both pleasure and unpleasure arising within the
mental structure. Necessary in reality's scheme of
self-preservation is protection against external threats
which lead to potential destruction. Freud points out,
however, that the instinct of self-preservation conflicts
with the theory that instinctual life leads naturally to
death:

Hence arises the paradoxical situation that the liv-

ing organism struggles most energetically against

events {dangers, in fact) which mighg help it to

attain its life's goal rapidly . . .
The ego instincts lead man rationally to death, while
the sexual or libidinal instincts combat this inevita-
bility and strive for longer life or continued life.

There is a natural dichotomy between life and

death, and love and hate (or affection and aggression).

With the hypothesis of narcissistic libido and the

extension of the concept of libido to the individual
cells, the sexual instinct was transformed for us

 

8Sigmund Freud, Bgypnd the Pleasure Principle,
translated by J:mes Strachey, (New Yerk: Liveright Pub-
lishing Corp., 1950), p. 51.

 

53

into Eros, which seeks to force together and hold
together the portions of living substance. What

are commonly called the sexual instincts are looked
upon by us as the part of Eros which is directed
towards objects , . . A portion of the "ego instincts"
is also of a libidinal character and has taken the
subject's own ego as its object. These narcissis-
tic self-preservative instincts had thenceforward to
be counted among the libidinal sexual instincts. The
opposition between the ego instincts and the sexual
instincts was transformed into one between the ego
instincts and the object instincts, both of a libid-
inal nature. But in its place a.fresh opposition
appeared between the libidinal (ego and object) in-
stincts and others, which must be presumed to be
present in the ego and which may perhaps actually

be observed in the destructive instincts. Our
speculations have transformed this ooposition into
one between the life instincts (Eros and the death
instincts.9

Freud views love as having at its core the ideal of
sexual love and sexual union. Linked to it, he maintains,
are love of oneself, love for relatives, a general friend-
ship and love for all, and devotion.10 He believes that
self-love helps the individual to assert himself. How—
ever, with the existence of group relations, people act
as though all were alike; they tolerate each other; they
feel no aversion toward others. Why? Because a libid-
inal tie negates narciésism. Thus, self-love can be
submerged to love for others and love for objects.

The ego becomes more and more unassuming and modest,

and the object more and more sublime and precious
until at last it gets possession of the entire self-

..— ‘

91bid., p. 84.

lOFreud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the
Ego , pp. 37’8.

53

love of the ego whose self-sacrifice thus follows
as a natural consequencel The object has, so to
speak, consumed the ego. l

The sexual development of humans is split into two
phases, the phase of early childhood and the one of adult-
hood. The two phases are separated by a latent period
during which usually no sexual impulses manifest them-
selves.

In adult life, when a sexual object is given up,
this may be followed by establishing that object within
the ego. Because it has relinquished its object-choice,
the ego can control the id. It forces itself upon the
id as a love-object, thus attempting to compensate to
the id for its loss of a sexual object. Object-libido,
in other words, changes into narcissistic libido. This
process may continue in a cyclical movement. In accom-
plishing this, the ego works at cross-purposes with the
life instincts and actually serves the death instinct.lg
In lower forms of life, the two are actually synonymous:

The ejection of the sexual substances in the sexual
act corresponds in a sense to the separation of soma
and germ-plasm. This accounts for the likeness of

the condition that follows complete sexual satisfac-
tion to dying, and for the fact that death coincides
with the act of copulation in some of the lower ani-

mals. These creatures die in the act of reproduc-
tion because, after Eros has been eliminated through

 

llIbido , Pp. 74-5.
l2Freud, "The Ego and the Id," p. 46.

54
the process of satisfaction, the death instinct has
a free hand ior accomplishing its purposes. 5
The ego desires to subject the id to itself and attempts
to accomplish this goal through the withdrawal of libido
from the id, thus forcing the id into dependence upon the
ego. Anxiety resides in the ego in its dread of the super-
ego which is based on its original fear of castration.
Its fear of death, too, stems from its fear of castration.'
ts wish for love is strong; for the ego, love and life
may be one and the same. The id can show neither love
nor hate to the ego, for it has no unified will. Strugg-
ling within the id for dominance are both Bros and the
death instinct.

Bound up in the problem of fear is anxiety, which
arises as a normal reaction to a dangerous situation. A
child, for instance, feels anxiety when he is away from
someone he loves. He feels the "danger" of not being
gratified; tension due to economic need exists in the
child. The child will be anxious, for instance, about
the absence of his mother, because he feels keenly the
survival problem. He has learned to associate his mother
14

with milk, which represents survival for him. Objective

anxiety deals with known, external dangers, while neurotic

 

‘—

15Ibid., p. 47.

14Sigmund Freud, Inhibitionsgggymptoms, and Anxiety,
translated by Alix Strachey (Lonaon: The Hogarth‘Press
and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1956), pp. 106-8.

55

anxiety deals with the unknown, or instinctual, dangers.
Symptoms manifest themselves as warning devices
against dangers which create anxiety.

If the ego succeeds in protecting itself from a
dangerous instinctual impulse, through, say, the
process of repression, it has certainly inhibited
and damaged the particular part of the id concerned;
but it has at the same time given it a bit of inde-
pendence and has renounced a bit of its own sover-
eignty . . . The repressed is now, as it were, out-
.lawed; it is excluded from the great organization

of the ego and is only subject to the laws which
govern the realm of the unconscious. . . The ego

may occasionally manage to break down the barriers
of repression which it has itself put up and to
recover its influence over the instinctual impulse
and direct its course in accordance with the changed
danger-situation. But in point of fact the ego very
seldom succeigs in doing this: it cannot undo its
repressicns.

The goal of repressi n is, obviously, to keep something
away from the conscious, to push it continuously into
the realm of the unconscious. To succeed, a repression
must prevent feelings of unpleasure or anxiety from emerg-
ing to the conscious sphere. The conscious is something
directly present to the senses and consciousness, some-
thing which is perceived. The unconscious is something
latent that might re-appear, something in one's memory.

16

The unconscious is the "true vehicle of mental activity."

If a latent idea never reaches consciousness, it is because

 

15Ibid., pp. 136-57.

l6Sigmund Freud, "Totem and Taboo," cpwsr, transla-
ted by James Strachey (London: The Hogarth Press and the
Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1955), Vol. XIII, p. 94.

56

repression prevents it from doing so. If the unconscious
remains unconscious, it becomes known only through dreams
and neuroses. The unconscious is divided into two types:
the latent ideas which will be able to reach conscious-
ness (the preconscious); and the repressed ideas which
cannot ever reach consciousness (the unconscious).
In psycho-analysis there is no choice for us

but to assert that mental processes are in themselves

unconscious, and to liken the perception of them by

means of consciousness to the perception oivthe ex-

ternal world by means of tne sense-organs.

In the individual, as perceived by Freud, then, it
seems reasonable to say that there is basic conflict or
alienation between the ego and the id; between the con-
scious and the unconscious; between self-love and love
for others; between love and hate; and above all, be-
tween life and death. Contradictions are implicit in
all of these human splits. If the split between the ego
and the id is conquered, it is conquered by means of the
ego forcing the id into a position akin to slavery. This
lends the character of narcissistic self-love to the in-
dividual, for a part of his mental processes (the ego)
is saying to another part (the id), "I'm taking away the
libido which you have conferred on your sexual object

and incorporating it into myself. To get to the sexual

object which is now part of your ego, you will have to

 

17Sigmund Freud, "The Unconscious," CPWSF, transla-
ted by James Strachey (London: The Hogarth Press and
the Institute of Psycho—Analysis, 1957), Vol. XIV, p. 171.

57

love me." The subjection of the id to the ego, then,
can be viewed as the love of one part of a person for
another part of his person.

The conscious and the unconscious seem irreparably
at odds with each other, since the ego's force of repres-
sion keeps some instincts submerged in the unconscious.
Thus the conscious and the unconscieus have no opportunity
to become one. The separation is contained in the exis-
tence of man.

Love for others, in Freud's language, seems not
to be love for them for themselves but love for them for
their ability to satisfy one's own selfish desires, in
their ability or potential to give a person the feeling
of wholeness as a person. It is principally sexual union
that Freud seems concerned with, rather than union in.a
more pervasive sense of the word. It appears that Freud
attaches two meanings to sexual love or sexual union:
pleasure, and the propagation of the species.

Before discussing the love-hate and life-death
dichotomies, it will be important to delve into Freud's
discussion of man in the more general sense.

Freud relates the primitive forces of totem and
taboo to the mental processes of man. A taboo is a pro-
hibition which is imposed by some outside force. Uncon-

sciously, human beings wish to go against the taboo.

58

The taboo, to which magical power is attributed, com-
mands obedience; if the taboo is violated, the violator
stones for this by renunciation.
The ceremonial taboo existing against kings car-
ries with it the appearance, in the conscious mind, of a
high honor for the kings, but in the unconscious mind,
it is actually punishment for the kings, "a revenge taken
on them by their subjects."18
In the taboo concerning the dead, living persons
refuse to recognize any hostile feelings held toward the
dead. Rather, the survivor believes that hostility is
kept within the soul of the dead. In spite of this de-
fense mechanism to keep back live hostile feelings against
dead persons, emotions break forth showing the survivor's
remorse.
The taboo upon the dead arises, like the others,
from the contrast between conscious pain and uncon- O
scious satisfaction over the death that has occurred. “
Unconsciously hostility is projected to the dead, thus
making an enemy of the dead.
Freud likens the taboo to conscience by pointing
out that the conscience involves the recognition of some
particular wish inside us. The taboo built by primitive
man is a command from the conscience; if it is violated,

a sense of guilt results.2O Guilt is like anxiety, except

 

laFreud, "Totem and Taboo," p. 51.

lgIbid., 0. 61.

1.

20Ibid., p. 68.

59

that anxiety comes from unconscious sources, from re-
pressed wishes. Prohibition found in the form of the ta-
boo means that there must be some underlying desire, for
there would be no need to attach a taboo to something for
which no one has desire.
Comparing the taboo to neurosis, Freud comments
that a person restricted by the taboo prohibition submits
because of fear of personal punishment; the person, in
psychoanalytic terms, however, who is held by obsessional
neurosis, submits because of fear for som one he loves.
Freud indicates that this fear on the part of the neurotic
results from an earlier wish for the loved person (such
as the wish that that person die) which has been repressed
and subsequently replaced by the fear.
The asocial nature of neuroses has its genetic
origin in their most fundamental purpose, which is
to take flight from an unsatisfying reality into a
more pleasurable world of phantasy. The real world,
which is avoided in this way by neurotics, is under
the sway of human society and of the institutions
collectively created by it. To turn away from reality
is aplthe same time to withdraw from the community of
man.~
Freud draws into his discussion animism, which is
the doctrine of souls and involves control over other
objects or over the spirits of other objects. Sorcery

and magic act as the immediate controls. magic protects

persons from enemies and from dangers, while at the same

 

21Ibid., p. 74.

60

time giving a person the power to injure his enemies.
Injury may be accomplished through the possession of a
part of a person -- his hair, his nails, his clothing,
his name. Complete and total injury is accomplished
through complete possession of a person; in this instance,
through cannibalism. Injury to a person may also be ac-
complished through making an effigy of him, with injury
to the effigy considered tantamount to injury of the in-
dividual enemy. Still another type of magic are the rain
and fertility rites, accompanied by the fear that incest
. . . 22
Will cause crop failure and sterile land.
At the animistic stage men ascribe omnipotence to
themselves. At the religious stage they transfer it
to the gods but do not seriously abandon it them-
selves, for they reserve the power of influencing
the gods in a variety of ways according to their
wishes. The scientific view of the universe no longer
affords any room for human omnipotence; men have ac-
knowledged their smallness and submitted resignedly
to death and to the other necessities of nature.
None the less some of the primitive belief in omnipo-
tence still survives in men's faith in the power of
the humagsmind, which grapples with the laws of
reality.
Freud compares this process in all of mankind with the
sexual development in individual man. He reminds us
that the first manifestations of sex are the auto-erotic
ones; that, later, they are directed toward another ob-

ject; and that, in between, there is a period of narcissism,

 

221bid., p. so.

231bid., p. as.

uL

61

an intermediate stage in which sexual instincts are direc-
ted toward a person's own ego. Freud posits that animism
in the whole of mankind is comparable to narcissism; that
the phase of religion is like the sexual stage at which

parents; and

A

the child feels an object-cathexis with his
that the dominance of science in the world correSponds to
the stage of maturity in the individual at which he is
part of the world of reality and looks to the external
world for his sexual object.'2

In totemism, the taboo prohibitions are: first,
not to kill the totem animal which represents the father;
and second, not to have sexual relations with a woman of
the same totem. The violation of these taboos is reflec-
ted in Oedipus, who murdered his father and married his
mother. The taboos also correspond to the wishes of
young male children who hope to replace their father in
their mother's affection.

Kinship in primitives is a bond which allows par-
ticipation together. "If a man shared a meal with his
god he was eXpressing a conviction that they were of one
substance; and he would never share a meal with one whom

25 .
he regarded as a stranger." Important to the totemic
religion are the sacramental killing and the common eating
of the totem animal -- a ritual which does not exist ex-

p

. . 2 .
cept at the time of the sacramental killing. 0 Resulting

2"from” p. 90.

J.

.d

251hid., p. 155.

26Ibid., p. 139.

62

from the killing are both festivity and mourning, an am-
bivalence which is also noted in man's feelings about the
father image. That is, the brothers in a clan kill the
father whom they had both hated and admired. This deed
is revoked by forbidding anyone to kill the totem, which
is Set up as a father-substitute. The brothers renounce
the advantages of killing their fatter by giving up their
claim to women, who are set free by the second totem dic-
tate. Springing from their sense of guilt, then, in the
murder of the father, the brothers establish the two ta-
boos of totemism which correspond to the two repressed
wishes of the Oedipus complex. Harbored in theprohibi-
tion against killing the totem animal is a type of recon-
ciliation with their father. Added to this is a prohibi-
tion against fratricide, thus forestalling the possibility
that their father's fate should befall one of them.
Totenic religion arose from the filial sense of
guilt, in an attenpt to allay that feeling and to
appease the father by deferred obedience to him.
ill later religions age seen to be attenpts at solv-
ing tne same problem.
After a period of totemism, the brothers of the clan even-
tually elevate their father to a state of godhood. Thus,
the father regains his human, as opposed to his animal,
shape, and the clan members claim that they are descend-

ants of a god. While the animal-substitute for the father

and the related taboos are one means of reunion with the

 

27Ibid., p. 145.

63

father, the religious ideal of making the father a god

. . . 28
18 "a Iar more serieus attempt at atonement."

Later on in time, the killing of the totem animal
becomes regarded as a sacrifice to the god.

We find the myths showing the god killing the animal
which is sacred to him and which is in fact himself.
Here we have the most extreme denial of the great
crime which was the beginning of society and of the
sense of guilt. But there is a second meaning to this
last picture of sacrifice which is unmistakable. It
expresses satisfaction at the earlier father-surrogate
having been abandoned in favour of the superior con-
cept of God. At this point the psycho-analytic inter-
pretation of the scene coincides approximately with
the allegorical, surface translation of it, which
represents the god as overcoming the animal side of
its own nature.“9

Turning from the primitive concept of totemic re-
ligion, Freud concentrates briefly on a comparison with
Christianity.

There can be no doubt that in the Christian
myth the original sin was one against God the Father.
If, however, Christ redeemed mankind from the burden
of original sin by the sacrifice of his own life, we
are driven to conclude that the sin was a murder.
The law of talion, which is so deeply rooted in hu-
man feelings, lays it down that a murder can only be
expiated by the sacrifice of another life: self-
sacrifice points back to blood-guilt. And if this
sacrifice of a life brought about atonement of God
the Father, the crime to be expiated can only have
been the murder of the father.

In the Christian doctrine, therefore, men were
acknowledging in the most undisguised manner the
guilty primeval deed, since they found the fullest
atonement for it in the sacrifice of this one son.
Atonement with the father was all the more complete
since the sacrifice was accompanied by a total re-
nunciation of the women on whose account the re-
bellion against the father started. But at that

28Ibid., p. 149.
ngbid., p. 150.

64

point the inexorable psychological law of ambiva-
lence stepped in. The very deed in which the son
offered the greatest possible atonement to the
father brought him at the same time to the attain-
ment of the wishes against the father. He himself
became God, beside, or more correctly, in place of,
the father. A son-religion displaced the father-
religion. As a sign of this substitution the an-
cient totem meal was revived in the form of com-
munion, in which the company of brothers consumed
the flesh and blood of the son -- no longer the
father -- obtained schtity thereby and identified
themselves with him.

In Freud's eyes, the communion practiced in Chris-
tianity is a repetition of the killing of the father,
or of the killing of God.

While building up a rationale of religion on the
one hand, on the other hand, Freud destroys it in a dis-
cussion of illusions. He claims that illusions come from
human wishes and that, as such, religion is an illusion.

Where questions of religion are concerned, people
are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and
intellectual misdemeanour . . . They give the name
of "God" to some vague Sbstraction which they have
created for themselves.
Religion, Freud says, has not given happiness to people,
nor has it made them satisfied with civilization. He
points out that society prohibits murder and kills those
who violate the prohibition. The justice and punishment

inherent in this scheme is rational. However, he says

that the emotions of mankind insist that this prohibition

 

501bid., p. 154.

3lsigmund Freud, "The Future of an Illusion," cpwsr,
translated by James Strachey (London: The Hogarth Press
and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1961), Vol. XXI,
p. 32.

65

comes from God. Urging that it would be better to credit
man with the origin of the regulations of civilization,
Freud says that people could then understand that the rules
were adopted to serve their own interests. Rather than
try to abolish regulations, people might try to improve.
This, Freud claims, would help to reconcile individuals
with civilization.

Civilization, he argues, depends on work and on the
renunciation of instincts. This forces a coercive pat-
tern, for men do not work of their own volition, nor can
logical arguments be used to stay men's passions. Ex-
ternal coercion may become internal coercion in the form
of the super-ego. These persons in whom this occurs be-
come the vehicles of civilization, rather than the op-
ponents of it.32 Freud suggests that the purpose of
civilization is to protect man from nature.33

Because the killing of the primitive father re-
sulted in the regulation against murder, the fallacious
link between civilization's rules and "God's commandments"
exists. He condemns religion as being "the universal
obsessional neurosis of humanity; like the obsessional
neurosis of children, it arose out of the Oedipus complex,

out of the relation to the father."54

 

32Ibid., p. 11.

33Ibid., p. 15,

34Ibid., p. 45.

66

In another account of ivilization, Freud say: that
civilization itself can be blamed for some pain. Happi-
ness would be more attainable, he says, in a primitive
society. Unhappiness reigns because of several factors:
Christianity's victory over paganism; discovery voyages
which lead to contact with primitives where happiness
seems present; and progress which results in disappoint-
ment because there is no more pleasure than existed previ-
ously.

Hen naturally desire hap-iness from life, which
means that they want pleasures and hope to eliminate pain
and discomfart. Pain and suffering may come from one's
own body; from the outer world; and from relations with
others. One possible safeguard to pain is isolation from
others. But seen as a better solution is mingling with
the community of humans to attack natwre. Through this
attack, aided by science, nature may be submerged to
humanity for the mutual good.

Wags to avert private pain are categorized by
Freud as being: intoxication; creativity, which he ac-
knowledges few persons have; illusions, or a world of
fantasy; living in solitude as a hermit; and sexual love.
He cautions that there is no certain road to happiness,
but at the same time that no person avoids trying to find
the road to happiness. It is within the framework of

culture that this attempt is made.

67

The word "culture" describes the sum of the achieve-
ments and institutions which differentiate our lives
from those of our animal forebears and serve two
purposes, namely, thrt of protecting humanity against
nature and of regggating the relations of human beings
among themselves.”

Freud defines the common characteristics of humanity
as being the necessity to work, and the "power of love."36
Love forces the male to desire the female to be near him
and the female to desire the child, which was once part

7 , . .
3 Man's work forces him into de-

of her body, near her.
pendence on other men and tends to alienate him from his
duties as husband and father.

Civiiization is jeopardized because of men's aggres-
sions toward one another. WOrk interests are not strong
enough to hold them together against instinctual passions.
Freud argues that the communist ideal of abolition of
private property would not rid man of the aggressive in-
stinct, for that instinct was present in the absence of
property.

Love can be a uniting force for men, as long as
some men remain as objects for aggression.

Man in the primitive state was more fortunate in a

sense than today's man in that he had no restrictions on

his instincts. Today's civilized man has traded part of

 

35Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents,
translated by Joan Riviere (London: The Hogarth Press,
Ltd., 1955), p. 49.

 

361bid., p. 68.
37Ibid., p. 68.

68

his Opportunity for happiness for some measure of se-

curity.58

Eros is the binding force bringing together two
persons, families, tribes, races, nations. It is a lib-
inal force, for they could not be held in a group by the
necessity of work. Aggression, on the other hand, is de-

rived from the death instinct; it is part of man's natural

So

instincts and it works against the comnon culture. “ Ag-

gressivencss turns against the ego; the super-ego conquers
it and turns it against the ego in the same way that the
ego wanted to use it against others. The resultant ten-
sion between the ego and the super-ego is called guilt

and is seen as the need for punishment.

Since culture obeys an inner erotic impulse which
bids it bind mankind into a closely knit mass, it
can achieve this aim only by means of its vigilance
in fomenting an ever-increasing sense of guilt . . .
If civilization is an inevitable course of develop-
ment from the group of the family to the group of
humanity as a whole, then an intensification of the
sense of guilt -- resulting from the innate conflict
of ambivalence, from the eternal struggle between
the love and death trends -- will be inextricably
bound up with it, until perhaps the sense of guilt
may swelioto a magnitude that individuals can hardly
support.

As Freud sees it, then, happiness is submerged to the
greater feeling of guilt as the civilization progresses.

The sense of guilt may be likened to anxiety in individual

 

581bid., p. 92.

391bid., p. 105.

401bid., pp. 121-22.

69

life -— to the dread of the Super-eg0.4l Happiness is
made subservient to the more overriding need and/or de-
sire for unity of all mankind in a civilized cultural
development.

It almost seems as if humanity could be most success-

fully united into one great whole if there were no 42

need to trouble about the happiness of individuals.

The tragedy of civilization, as Freud views it, is
that man has been so successful in his victory over na-
ture that he now has the power at his ready disposal to
annihilate all mankind. This is the destiny from which
there is no turning back. Freud says that mankind knows
this and "hence arises a great part of their current un-
rest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension."43
Love vs. hate, or love vs. aggression, is unlikely

to be reconciled, if one accepts Freud's thesis that ag-
gressive tendencies and hate are natural instincts. His
suggestion that love may be a uniting force for men is
not an all-inclusive suggestion, in that he stipulates
that there must remain men who can be objects of aggres-
sion. As long as aggression and the tendency toward it
exist, there can be no successful reconciliation of this

split. Freud strongly suggests that man has forfeited

 

4=1Ibi<jl., p. 125.
421bid., p. 155.
43Ibid., p. 144.

70

his chance for happiness by believing that mechanical
progress will lead to future happiness.

The life-death dichotomy poses similar difficul-
ties. On the one hand, man wants to live and in living,
wants a fulfilled life, while on the other hand, the very
fact of man's existence is one step followed by another
on the path toward death. Life and death are essentially
not in conflict, for they need each other for continuance.
Death could not occur without life, nor could the life of
mankind be a possibility without the death which logi-
cally follows each individual life. Yet, within man,
there is conflict. There is the constant will to live
which includes libidinal impulses on both a private and
a universal plane, clashing with the necessary fact of
death, destruction and aggression. This ambivalence is
brought out rath r clearly in Freud's discussion of totem-
ism, with the taboos which are attached to it. Apparently
unavoidable are the instincts which lead to the murder of
the tribal father, but just as unavoidable are the in-
stincts which lead to the subsequent replacement of the
tribal father with a totem animal. The taboo restric-
tions place the animal on a,pedestal -- a pedestal which
the brothers view as holding the symbolic replacement of
their father. The later elevation of the father to a

place of godhood intensifies the feeling of admiration

71

or esteem in which the brothers hold the father. Adula-
tion has replaced hatred, but hatred is nonetheless the
underlying motive behind according the dead father such
a high place within the clan. Paradoxically, because of
the fact of the murder, the brothers have succeeded in
giving continued life to the father.

Freud cannot let man become totally reconciled
within himself or in relation to other human beings, for
Freud's system means that the ego and the id must continue
to be separate. They have separate functions and they
cannot be joined.

For Freud, society and civilization appear to
play the same type of role that capitalism does for Til~
lich. Freud's man is a creature who thinks he has found
freedom in civilization, but actually he has only found
greater enslavement.

Freud discusses the various dichotomies within man
and between men, but he offers little in the way of pos-
sibilities for overcoming the estranged character of ex-
istence. In fact, for Freud, as for Tillich, it seems

that existence must necessarily involve estrangement.

CI’iILPT 4R V

CONCLUSION

Alienation has been seen in the writings of Narx,
Tillich and Freud as the absence of freedom for indi-
viduals.

None of these writers has posited a solution which
would seem to bring about a "non-alienation." Theoreti-
cally, since each of them is concerned about alienation,
such a state as "non-alienation" ought to be possible.
Practically, however, non-alienation within the frame-
works of Marx, Tillich and Freud seems not to be possi-
ble.

The reason may lie in the possibility that man ac-
tually is not alienated, that the phenomenon which these
writers believes exists actually does not. It may be
that only those persons who write or speak of alienation
are actually empty of freedom. Conversely, those per-
sons who are not aware of alienation may believe that

they have human freedom.

72

73

There may be degrees of alienation. A person who
is separated from that which he has a stake in producing
may have "I-Thou" relationships with other persons.
Another person may be able to attain reconciliation with
God. It seems likely that, even accepting the systems of
Marx, Tillich and Freud, many persons might be alienated
from freedom in parts of their lives, but at the same
time, they might exercise freedom in other parts of their
lives.

The term "alienation" is too general a term. If
it is to be used, it would seem.more sensible to qualify
it with an appropriate adjective in each instance. Harx's
kind of alienation is not identical with Tillich's kind
of alienation, nor Tillich's with Freud's. Even though
there are points of similarity, it rakes slightly more
sense to speak of Marx's as economic alienation, Tillich's
as religious alienation, and Freud's as psychological
alienation. Ideally, a new vocabulary in the area of
alienation would be desirable.

The subject of alienation is one that appears to
be subjective to the point that whether man is alienated
depends upon which writer's system is being scrutinized

and what one's own personal values are.

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