alienation
Nov. 7th, 2011 03:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dniprovskaIV. ALIENATION
Among all riddles of existence occupying the minds of both ancient and modern thinkers the riddles of human existence are the most puzzling and intricate. The reason is that in distinct to all previous levels of organization of matter regulated by constant laws, social reality is very fluent as it is still undergoing evolutionary changes. That is why the investigation of Cosmos and Nature looks like gradual accumulation of positive knowledge while solving the problems of Man and Society is a perpetual loss of illusions: once philosophers become sure they have found the clue that may be a reliable guide in the labyrinths of human existence, it turns into a knot of contradictions and leave them before the next deadlock.
However the intellectual elite never leave the attempts to discover the very sense of human existence as it has always understood: even the most exact and comprehensive information about the nature of things is useless if Man has wrong idea concerning his own one.
The twentieth century with its cosmic speeds and global shakes made existential problems especially intricate, revealing deep contradictions between man’s intentions and results of his activity which strengthened pessimistic view on human nature and on the future of society. Really, Homo sapiens has never yet been simultaneously so powerful and powerless, so qualified and ignorant, so great and miserable: he has explored all nooks of the Earth, measured the width of the Universe and looked into the depth of microcosm; he discovered fundamental laws of nature and made them to serve his own purposes, but the most important laws – the laws of happiness and immortality are still beyond his control. All human individuals desire to get fortune and avoid death, but the most of them are doomed to fall into oblivion without enjoying felicity. In spite of great advance of civilization World remains alien for the most of individuals, so in the post-industrial epoch the phenomenon of alienation became a most popular subject for social studies.
It should be mentioned that thinkers of all times realized that there is an alien force that is constantly present in human life distorting its very essence and causing deep sufferings to human beings. The problem was so complicated that only since 18 c. the nature of Alienation became to be more or less clearly understood. E. Kant and G. Hegel associated this problem with practical activity marking that people often percept the objective results of their own work in a wrong way. K. Marx, this rebellious Prometheus, showed Alienation in the light of criticism of bourgeois society and, by the way, considerably advanced in solving the riddle. Marx viewed Alienation as the result of loosing by a [working] man his creative nature. With Marx the chief factors of alienation are: 1) private property and market (bourgeois) system of production under which capitalists privately appropriate the products of worker’s labour, so the worker is alienated from the enjoyment of the results of the work; 2) specialization and piecework when labour is bereft of its creative aspect which leads to depersonalization of the worker; 3) fetishesation of the product of labour. As a consequence man’s life and practical activity as well as his interpersonal relations appear to be alien to him.
In 20 c. Alienation was one of the most popular subjects of philosophic studies especially for neo-Marxists. They concentrated their attention on depersonalisation of individuals in post-industrial society. The most philosophers of post-modernity held that automation of production as well as mass media and pop-art propagating conformism and consumerist values are the main causes of Alienation.
Both Marxists and neo-Marxists believed that Alienation may be overcome in the nearest future if change the principles of social relations and consciousness of the masses through abolition of private property, refuse from obeying the rules of consumerist society, propagating new outlook based on humanistic values, etc. But time showed that these measures are not too much effective – this prompts the idea that the roots of Alienation are much deeper and much more complex than it seemed to the critics of industrial/post-industrial society.
There is no doubt that class society based on private property is not the best environment for developing people’s creative nature, expropriation of the product from its direct producer and social inequality does not strength human dignity and harmonize human relations, however the abolition of private property is a necessary but not sufficient measure for eradication of Alienation. (The experience of socialist countries shows that the absence of private property on the means of production did not help to eliminate depersonalization of individuals and consumerist outlook.) And the fact that the producer does not enjoy the product of his work is not an essential feature of Alienation – in civilized societies with more or less profound division of labour the product of a person’s work is usually subject to exchange and is destined to satisfy the needs of other members of social community. An individual becomes a true species-being when he is involved in a socially important activity; the main objective of a true human (creative) work is not to enjoy the results but to make them useful for the whole society. (By the way, the most of great scientists, artists, men of letters, vis. the producers of spiritual values lived in poverty and never appropriated the whole value of their products which were immense, none-the-less they were the persons of bright individuality and their work can not be qualified as alien, although they did not enjoy the results). Narrow specialization and piecework by no means water down a person’s outlook, but it should be noticed that the work of a craftsman carried on in compliance to cliché is no more creative than the labour of an industrial worker.
It may seem paradoxical, but a main problem of both industrial and post-industrial (as well as preindustrial societies) is that the division of labour is not too much developed, so the variety of existing lines and professions are tiny in comparison with the enormous variety of human individualities, and due to this circumstances different persons have to do the same work, having no chance to find their true vocation and reveal their hidden creative abilities.
What should be selected from the abovementioned concepts of Alienation is the statement that the society we live in is alien to the most of its members as it deprives them of their individuality or in other words their creative nature (the most valuable attribute of any human creature). In this context the terms individuality and creative nature should be used as synonyms, because to create is to produce something new, any novelty is the result of single instance, so individuality (a unique complex of intellectual, physical and psychical characteristics raising specific needs and intentions that make a person deviate from conventional rules and principles) is a main source of social development.
In more broad meaning Alienation is the loss of integrity (unity) or an attribute. As applied to social reality Alienation may be defined as deep incompliance between a person’s social function (a cell he occupies in a social system) and his individuality (the aspects of his nature) that leads to the loss of creative abilities and ability to establish fruitful relations with social environment and the surrounding world.
What should be considerably reviewed is the concept of factors causing Alienation.
Almost all critics of the industrial/post-industrial society were sure that science and technique had possessed great power over nature and that productive capacity of economic system was immense. But many philosophers of the pre-industrial epoch held the same: Rousseau, for example, marked that the humanity had done a great work on exploration and transformation of natural environment and wondered how little happiness this added to peoples’ life and how tiny was the progress of moral. Nineteenth century looked down on the achievements of the previous epoch and overestimated its own ones – for example, in Marxist theory the productive forces of that period were characterised as gigantic, but in comparison with technique of 20 c. they look like dwarfs, none the less post-modernists continue contending that the power of science and technique is overwhelming, that they enthral human beings and make them soulless and indifferent to each other. The matter is that when assessing the level of economic, cultural and social development the researches compare it only with that of previous periods and can not avoid overestimation. It would be much more reasonable to assume that economic and cultural progress of the contemporary society is still very moderate, that techniques and technologies used by industrial systems are still very primitive and incapable both to provide people with sufficient quantity of material values and to release them from the necessity to participate in routine industrial processes aimed at reproduction of goods and services that give them not a slightest emotional satisfaction; the field for creative work is still tiny, so only a handful of people have real chance to find their true vocation and occupy an adequate (i.e. comfortable) place in social system. Limited economic resources and narrow space for self-realization cause rivalry among human beings; this preserves bestial features in their behaviour, as from the very early days of his life a member of society (like an individual of animal population) is involved in the process of competition and selection.
Of course, economic progress abolished natural selection, but social system continues selecting souls (individualities). Social environment whose basic principles of existence are determined by economic necessity usually recognize only limited variety of personal characteristics (predominantly those ensuring adaptation to routine industrial [and related] processes) the rest are mercilessly eradicated or neglected. This leads to estrangement of the most individuals from their own selves – their “Ego” splits into two: the real one (inborn features and abilities) and the false one (the complex of habits and convictions being not natural for a person, but giving him better chances for adaptation and survival in the alien social environment).
Economic necessity dominating the life of society is one of the strongest factors of Alienation – low level of automation and productivity of industrial systems force the most of its members to earn their living by in reproduction of goods and services (doing alien work) that destroy their bodies and souls and deprive them of their true dignity. A person whose work is aimed at re-production and is carried on according to a certain pattern (devised by somebody else) may have only relative significance, as he can be more or less easily substituted by somebody else who has learned the working algorithm. Moreover the products of industrial (and related) processes are aimed at consumption and when they are consumed they are vanish without leaving a trace, hence the individuals involved in production of material values live in a slipping reality: from one side they do something useful, but from another side the results of their work are not worth all the pains and sacrifices related to it, and finally their life (their only life!) is spent in vain. The real essence of the worker’s estrangement from the results of his labour is not expropriation of the product by capitalists (who also do alien work) but the fact that this result disappear and has no connection with his/ser person as the same results are produced by numbers of other individuals.
The only kind of work which may give true emotional satisfaction, absolute significance, which results do not vanish and preserve close connection with the person who produced them (making his name immortal) is creative (innovative) work. The question is whether all human beings posses creative nature (are able to produce something new and unique). The answer determines the solution of another crucial problem: whether human race will ever be able to eliminate all vicious (bestial) forms of social relation and become a true human association of free and moral individuals.
There is a widely spread opinion (based on experience) that talent is a rare gift and only small minority of all human population have aptitudes for creative activity, the rest is able only to reproduce that which was invented by others. From the first glance this view seems quite reasonable but a profound study of the nature of creative activity may lead to another conclusion.
Although it may seem insulting for some intellectuals considering they are the elect, the process of creation (in its very essence) is reflection of an objectively existing phenomenon and presenting it in the form that is comprehensive (useful) for other individuals (it may be a theory, a formulae, a novel, a dance, a dramatic performance, a political institution, a code of laws, etc. – the variety of such forms is immense). As there is no phenomenon with a single aspect, the individual reflecting and presenting a certain form of being should possess specific complex of aptitudes as personal characteristics that perfectly correspond with the aspects of the subject of his creative activity. So, an talent reveal itself at the moment of “meeting” of an individual possessing a unique complex of aptitudes and characteristics (both inborn and formed by personal life experience) and the correspondent subject. Vocation is a strong (and of ten irresistible) feeling of coincidence between the aspects of a person’s individuality and the aspects of kindred phenomenon (the subject of creative work).
There several causes due to which the most of individuals fail to reveal their creative nature. At first, people are “chained” to production, the most of them have no opportunities to develop their talents and search for their true vocation – economic system with limited productive capacity can maintain only small number of individuals not involved in the industrial (and related) processes. One of the most dangerous instruments of alienation is consumerist ideology, their pressure of is so strong that the most of people can not resist it and devote their lives struggling for material values and high social position, but until production of goods and services will require participation of individuals consumerist outlook will dominate in mass consciousness, as it serves as positive motivation for doing an alien work. So, a necessary precondition for elimination of Alienation is economic development the highest stage of which implies completely automated and self-regulating productive forces with unlimited productive capacity; a necessary, but not sufficient. To realize their creative nature the individuals should not only to be released from alien work, but to get cultural and social conditions to find the kindred one.
It is hard to believe that individuals with talents for natural sciences (such as biology or chemistry) had never been born before eighteen century, or those with aptitudes for cinematography had not existed before 20c. Each new line of activity is the result of socio-economic and cultural development that raises new problems and creates new instruments for cognition and exploration the surrounding world[1]. So, the more complex and developed is social structure the more persons have real chances to find the correspondent objective for creative activity.
Although today’s advance of economy and culture seems to us immense in comparison with the past, but there is no indisputable reasons to assert that modern society has opened an unbounded horizon for creative work. More probably the area for creative activity is like a tiny patch of ploughed field surrounded by an unbounded space of virgin land, so there is no wonder that only a handful of seeds (talents) bear fruits (unique results).
Of course, people are not equally talented – only a small percent of human creatures is gifted with genius and is able to make a fundamental contribution to social and cultural development. But progress does not often meet with great challenges – so a social system does not require too many geniuses; at the same time the variety of specific, particular problems (that also requires solution) is immense, so under certain conditions the persons with average abilities may find the respective line of creative work, as human creative nature is determined not by the level of aptitudes, but by a unique combination of aptitudes, skills and characteristics that enables a person to perform a unique function (role) in society and produce unique results. One of the greatest tragedy of the present (as well as the past and the nearest future) is that the most of human creatures can reveal only few and the least original facets of their nature while the infinite and immortal essence of their souls slowly dies away without shedding light on the true sense of their life dooming them to the aimless wondering in the infernal darkness of non-existence.
The other cause preventing the most of human creatures from realization their creative nature is alien social environment they are born and live in. Socio-economic systems where the most of people have to earn their living by doing alien work and compete for the access to material values and high social positions form very unfavourable climate for preserving and developing one’s individuality; to provide its own functioning such systems have to bring up workers and consumers, it creates conditions that destroy people’s true identity for they could conform and reproduce but could not create.
First of all the system prevents a person’s self-cognition. To find his true vocation a man/woman should have a clear idea of his own self (nosce te ipse). However self-cognition is not a pure self-contemplation, but an active process implying intensive interaction with the surrounding world. An individual should try him self in various roles and situation and observe the reflection of his “Ego” produced by various things and persons. The tragedy is that from the very early days of his life the persons living in alien environment are surrounded with distorting mirrors: with other persons demonstrating indifference or hostility to their individuality as they have lost their own one (the victims of Alienation inevitably become the agents of Alienation and are unable or reluctant to give support to those who search for his true place in this world); with circumstances that permanently discourage and disorient him; with things and events that give him not a slightest hint of his true predestination... World remains mute and deaf to for the most of its creatures leaving their challenge without any response and making them stray in the labyrinth of falsehood right up their death.
One of the most horrible satellites of Alienation is Solitude (deep estrangement of individuals from each other). A necessary condition for establishing firm and stable ties (both between physical bodies and between people) is complimentary aspects and interexchange of energy and elements. Hence, stable and cordial relations between individuals require complimentary of personal characteristics (a prerequisite for mutual interest and sympathy) and perpetual interexchange of material and spiritual values. But it is impossible to establish such relations between depersonalized members of society, whose individuality is distorted and unified and whose personal aims are vague or false – if somebody has clear idea what he really is, he can not define whom he actually needs. To raise interest and to “bind” others to him self one should possess something original and valuable, so persons who has lost original (valuable) facets of his nature has very little power to attach to themselves those they need. To add it all people spend too much energy on struggling for existence to devote much time and attention to others. Members of different social groups are usually united not by mutual attraction and sympathy but by the pressure of external (and usually alien) circumstances. Alienation turns human life into a cool vacuum where each individual lonely revolves on his own axis slowly dissolving into oblivion.
A distinguishing feature of society where alienation reigns is total deficit of Love (or in other words constant shortage of Energy necessary for fruitful and hence happy life). As the nature of Homo sapiens is dual (has both physical and spiritual aspects), each human being needs both material and spiritual (emotional) support for his activity could bear worthy fruits. To love is to be a permanent source of material and spiritual values; to deserve Love means to be able to use the received energy for constructive deeds. The most of people leaving under the power of Alienation neither can grant their love to others nor deserve Love. To love people and to be worth of their love a person should have strong identity (as only a person who preserved his own individuality can respect the individuality of others) and occupy the respective position in social system – only that who deserved recognition of society (a social group) and takes pleasure of life may regularly replenish the reserves of energy to exchange with others and only that who has the true sense of life has reason to love[2], i.e.: to widen and strengthen the realm of Good for the results of his life will not be fallen into oblivion. But in the society where the most of human energy is absorbed by alien work and struggle for existence, where the most of human lives are senseless and fruitless, Love will always be a great rarity occasionally granted to a handful of the elect. A key objective of social progress is to release this energy being wasted fruitlessly, to fill peoples’ life with sense and thus enable all people to love (to support others in their struggle for happiness).
Depersonalisation of the mass of people leads to their deep estrangement from truth and moral. Truth submits the laws of Eternity and Infinity and always tends to Absolute; it is a merciless judge for those who waste their lives and a reliable guider those who pave new roads in the unbounded World. The burden of truth may be born only by those having a firm ground under their feet and hoping to reach the destination. Those who rotate in the narrow circle of reproductive processes (where almost everybody is on the wrong place, balancing on the shaky ground of economic conjuncture and get temporary results of relative significance) need not truth but semi-truth mixed with consolatory illusion. The less they know the less they realize what they have lost and the easier the adaptation to the alien condition of life. The greater is a person’s goal the more truth he needs and vice versa.
Those who do not dear to face the Truth are not able to comprehend the deepest sense of Moral. Moral (as well as Knowledge) appeared when human communities went over from adaptation to natural environment to constructive forms of existence. Truth facilitates exploration of the surrounding world; Moral (based on the principles of cooperation and mutual aid) regulates interpersonal relation in the way that provides joint productive activity. The problem is that the humanity as a whole acts as creative element, but an average member of human society has to adapt to social environment and re-produce set forms and functions, so the deepest (creative) sense of moral always slips off him. For depersonalised individuals ethical principles are no more than proprieties, or a set of dogmatic rules formulated by prophets/the powers which they easily break or follow thoughtlessly doing more harm than good. The deep sense of ethics is simple only for the persons whose position in social system corresponds with their identity and ambitions (giving both the right point of view on things and firm basis for self-respect) and who has deep belief in Eternity and rational (just) nature of our World – if presuppose that the Universe together with human race will some time completely disappear, then moral [constructive] deeds are senseless (religious prophets understood this maxim long ago and motivated their flock to follow ethical principles by promising eternal life and supreme judge). The greater is the objective a person has set and the higher is the probability of communication to something eternal the firmer is his moral principles and the more sacrifices he is ready to bring[3]; and vice versa: a person deprived of his identity, placed into an uncomfortable social cell by chance or by the pressure of alien circumstances (the greatest injustice that may be as it distorts the proportions between pains and losses and the results of a person’s activity) and thus estranged from Truth has neither power nor sense to be moral. Every moral (fruitful) deed is a step towards Eternity, every vicious deed (leading to senseless and fruitless waste of Energy) is a triumph of mortality. To kill a beast in a Homo sapiens is to communicate him to Eternity.
Together with individuality Alienation deprives human beings of free will. The problem of free will has been studied by philosophers both of the past and of the present times and they developed three main approaches towards this problem. (As usual each concept contains a fraction of truth mixed with false ideas.)
1) Every individual has free will, so a person’s choice depends only of his own self.
This view is usually shared by young and inexperienced persons, armchair thinkers and successful conformists being very proud of their relative prosperity.
This view is shaken by the question: why some people have good will while others have evil intentions. Experience inevitably prompts the idea that a person’s choice (will) is often restricted by numbers by external (objective) circumstances.
2) The evident influence of objective circumstances on an individual’s behaviour is the reason for the opposite opinion: an individual has no free will, his choice is completely determined by a current situation.
Also this view is very convenient for those who tend to avoid responsibility for their deeds, it is difficult to deny the fact that different individuals react on the same circumstances in different way.
3) There is also the third opinion (shared by Gobs, Spinoza, Kant, Marx and other thinkers who worshiped reason and overestimated its power: free will is realized necessity (duty).
This concept has considerable advantage over the previous ones: it recognizes relative and dual nature of human freedom that may never be absolute and determined both by objective and subjective factors, but it also has a weak point. There is no doubt that knowledge is a necessary condition for free will/choice – will without knowledge is blind and hence is not free, but the words “freedom” and “necessity” are too contradictory, their dissonance is so sharp that even the word “cognized” between them can not alleviate it. Of course, philosophic meaning of a term shall not be reduced to its common meaning, but there should not be too deep divergence between them. When we say “freedom” we usually imply independence, the absence of unbreakable ties and bounds and insurmountable barriers. In society freedom may be only relative, but when people speak about freedom, when they struggle for freedom they imply the independence of something harmful and unpleasant, bearing threat to the integrity of their bodies and souls and causing sufferings. Normally a person does not intent to be free from something that is the source of positive emotions. If proceed from the axiom that the sense of a person’s life is constructive activity that (if co-insides with his individuality) gives him both deep emotional satisfaction (happiness) and immortality (the prospect to leave his own trace in history), so free will may be defined as the will being free from the factors (both subjective and objective) restraining its creative power; free will is the will with maximal constructive capacity. A free person is a person who has the opportunity to determine his quality (social role) by his own self (being guided by vocation) and hence direct his will into constructive channel. So, free will is not an attribute of every human creature and not a fruit of cognition, but rather a gift, a result of harmonious interrelations between an individual and the environment. The Will may be good or evil depending on whether it is free or not.
There are two types of factors that limit a person’s creative power.
- Subjective (inner): lack of individuality, ignorance, prejudices, vanity, fear, low/shaky self esteem, devotion to false values, – all these vices disorient and discourage people and prevent them to mobilise their will and direct it to constructive objectives.
- Objective (external): various circumstances (being beyond an individual’s power) that block the way to realization of his creative nature.
Every individual receives genes that determine a number of intellectual, physical and psychical characteristics and gets into a certain social environment with which he starts interacting. The initial elements of his consciousness (ideas, attitudes, typical reactions, etc.) are determined by his individual features (given to him her by nature) and specific characteristics of the environment (which he does not choose). His further behaviour is conditioned by objective circumstances, individual characteristics and life experience (the result of previous spontaneous interactions), etc, etc. A person’s consciousness (that is usually viewed as subjective factor) is “put” into him by the forces being objective (independent) as regards to him, and a human creature who seemed to be the master of his destiny on closer examination turns out into a puppet being powerless to tear the threats that put him in motion.
The illusory nature of human freedom reveals itself in the situation of choice. Free will is often understood as the power to make independent choice between Good and Evil. However in real life people have to choose between two evils and even this choice is strictly predetermined.
The problem of choice belongs to the category of issues where the unpredictable is mixed with the probable. An individual’s behaviour is hardly predictable as it is determined by various factors the most of which are hidden, but the complexity of the process of decision-making is not sufficient reason to hold that there are several variants a person may choose in concrete situation.
The factor that makes the choice predestined is feelings (being the agents of self-preservation instinct), which make a person choose the most comfortable variant from the standpoint of his outlook, intellectual faculties, knowledge, previous experience, etc., that were formed long before the moment of choice. All pros and contras are already present in a person’s mind; situation simply put them on the scale.
Decision making is often connected with the conflict that is usually defined as the conflict between the mind (duty) and feelings. However actually it is the conflict between two groups of feelings: those prompting an individual to act according to commonly accepted rules and principles (duty) or according to the necessity (that are comprehended by mind) and those prompting to obey the demands of his nature (needs and desires coming out from his inborn aptitudes, inclinations and peculiar characteristics). If the variant prompted by duty does not contradict too much with a person’s nature he will listen to reason; but if the choice prescribed by duty is in deep convergence with his nature and threatens to destroy its integrity, the person will listen to the voice of nature. This conflict is not eternal but is typical for a society with limited opportunities: our feelings are tuned by nature for we could feel harmony and search for happiness, while Duty is the law of alien society where harmony is rare and where searching for happiness is a risky adventure usually condemned to failure.
The rebel against conventional rules may lead to different consequences depending on situation: the more primitive and rigid is social environment the higher is the probability of tragic failure and vice versa – in rapidly developing social systems the deeds prompted by heart have much more chances to bring constructive results. The laws of social progress (that is moved by individualities) justify those who remained true to themselves.
In a social system with limited resources for satisfaction of people’s material and spiritual needs the life of an individual may be creative, reproductive or destructive depending on the degree of freedom of his will. The most free (and in spite of all the luckiest individuals), who receive the opportunity to realize their creative nature and step into Eternity. Such favourites of fortune constitute a small percent of the whole human race – the destiny of billions is adaptation and reproduction. Those who fail to demonstrate bright talents and faculties and are mired in prosy existence are usually called philistines (or mediocrity). Although this social category is always sharply criticised by intellectual elite the prevalence of mediocrity makes possible industrial (and related) processes as only mediocre persons (with moderate spiritual needs and ambitions) are able to bear the burden of alien work and life routine being lack of deep emotions and outstanding events.
There is also a category of the most unfortunate individuals who fail both to adapt and to realise their creative nature. They usually become marginal elements and join the ranks of criminals, Bohemia, revolutionaries, etc. They may be highly educated persons with bright intellectual faculties; when communicating to cultural heritage they recognize deep spiritual similarity with prominent figures of the past – subconsciously they feel their will and intellect are quite powerful to do something of the same significance, but when they “enter” real life they make certain that the society they live in does not require them and that there is no field to apply their talents (which usually rise high ambitions) and realize themselves. After a series of unsuccessful attempts to find their true place in society they loose interest in life and destroy themselves or fly into rage and declare the war on this world that lured them with Eternity but blocked the way to it.
The ranks of outcasts may also include the persons who can not be called intellectuals but whose individuality contains very original and peculiar facets that do not fit standard frames preventing their adaptation to social environment. Usually they come of lower classes and miss the most sensitive period for communication to cultural heritage and developing their creative nature, so their outlook remained very narrow and this makes their searches of the proper place in the world very irrational, chaotic and usually condemned to failure. Like brave but unskilful sailors who do not know exactly what land they should reach, they flounder in the ocean of life and finally touch the bottom.
Human existence is the heaven of free and fruitful existence and the hell of restlessness divided by a sick wall of moderateness and mediocrity.
In this cruel world individuals are especially vulnerable and dependent on the mercy of fate as there is no universal imperative that may direct their choice and prompt right decision in all situations. Although many thinkers and prophets tried to formulate moral rules and principles none of them ensure constructive results of choice irrespective of time and place. In society where the space of interpersonal relations is curved by the burden of economic necessity, where people’s souls are distorted and devastated by Alienation all moral rules and principles may be only relative, their comprehension requires dialectical approach which main criterion is fruitfulness, but which did will be constructive (i.e. moral) depends on concrete circumstances. In society where limited resources for realization of people’s material and spiritual needs inevitably rises more or less sharp conflict of interests neither pure Good nor pure Evil is possible; their ways are not straight and cross with each other, and these opposites often change their places. So, individuals have to exist in delusive reality where nothing is definite and constant, where everything perpetually changes its meaning, where sins may bring more boon than virtues, where ladder to heaven turns into the road to hell and there where one hoped to watch the face of God Devil is grinning.
The only effective mean for this horrible uncertainty is Equality – a set of clear and universal moral principles may be formulated and applied to all circumstances only in a social system where all (or at least the overwhelming majority of) individuals pursue constructive objectives. This may be possible only if all members of society are equal.
The idea of equality has always occupied the minds of thinkers, politicians and even ordinary people as there has always been evident that inequality distorts human relations by causing hostility and rivalry and provoking immoral deeds. But the meaning of this term was understood in different ways.
The simplest form of equality that existed in primitive societies and remained a cherished dream of the working masses in class societies is economic equality implying equal participation in production and the right for equal share of product for every individual. This form of equality makes social relations clear and eliminates numbers of contradictions, but it shows no regards to spiritual (creative) nature of human individuals and hampers economic and cultural progress, so it is either turned into equal right for poverty and physical sufferings or destroyed by division of labour.
The other (religious) interpretation of equality means the equality before God and his Supreme Judge. But history showed: the postulate that all people are brothers and sisters provide cordial and fraternal relations only within small communities of neophytes, the establishment of church with its hierarchy and pressure of economic relations in which the most of believers are inevitably involved gradually turned this basic postulate of religious outlook into empty formality.
The ideology of the free-enterprise system propagates equality before the Law. The abolishment of class privileges in the course of bourgeois revolutions was an important step towards elimination of social injustice, but not the final decision of the problem. Many thinkers and humanists noticed that the equality before the Law itself could guarantee true equality only if all individuals have the same economic and social status and identical personal characteristics. But in societies where members have different physical and intellectual abilities as well as unequal conditions for their development this kind of equality is no more than the equal right for participation in all sorts of competition.
The problem of equality (as well as other problems regarding to human existence) should be viewed in the light of the basic axiom reading that the main predestination of a human being is realisation of his creative nature. So, true equality is the equal opportunities for development and realization of creative nature of all members of society. Or, in other words, equality is the equal right for Eternity.
It may sound as paradox, but complete equality may exist only between absolutely different individuals each of whom performs specific (useful) function chosen by him deliberately according to his inner vocation and being hardly substitutable by somebody else. Under such condition all members of society will be of equal importance and will have all reasons to value (and deliberately support) each other and this will form unshakeable basis for sincere and fraternal relations.
There is no unshakeable proof of whether the society of true freedom, equality and fraternity is possible, but we have weighty reasons to believe in such possibility because all history of the mankind is actually the process of gradual overcoming of Alienation.
In primitive societies the power of Alienation was absolute as creative nature of their members stayed in embryo. The life of a primitive man/woman was completely determined by external (alien) factors, such as natural surroundings and tribal customs and traditions being obligatory for every member of primitive community. The immense variety of human talents and abilities were reduced to those being necessary for survival within a certain geographic area. Generations came and generations went without leaving a trace.
The division of labour and invention of written language was the first break-through towards Eternity and the first win over Alienation. It formed the basis for further emancipation of human individuality and provided means for immortalizing those human beings who contributed to social and cultural progress.
None the less, after making this crucial step the humanity many times yielded to Alienation as social progress often was slowed down and even interrupted. And a society (even a civilized society) that simply reproduces certain economical, political and cultural forms is a domain of Alienation, because it ceases to be an association of human individuals and turns into a Kingdom of Archetypes. In such social system people have nothing but to fit their personalities to the patterns precipitated by tradition.
[1] Successful solution of many creative tasks often depends on means provided by related areas: to get access to such objects as remote galaxies or subatomic particles the researches need special devices that may be produced only by highly developed industrial systems, such great theory as Relativity would remain to be more or less verisimilar hypothesis without Riemann’s geometry, etc.
[2] Men of letters had understood this maxim long ago – Hamlet, Faust, Steppenwolf , the heroes of Stendhal, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Cortazar are unable to love in spite of high intellect and bright individuality. Deliberately or non-deliberately they grieve those who dear to them, as being estranged of real life they remain permanently distressed and disoriented.
[3] The understanding of the supreme value of Eternity regarding material values (which power is temporary) caused great fortitude of religious prophets and martyrs as well as men of genius whose works and deeds survived them and provided them the eternal presence in the history of mankind being considered by humanistic tradition as the form of immortality (“Ars longa vita brevis est”, “Exegi monumentum”).
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