Alienation, Class Interests, and Individual Interests
I have observed a fundamental difference of opinion between those who believe that individual temperament is definitive in how one relates to the world and those who believe that social, cultural, and ethnic identities are more important and more powerful in creating one's situation in the world. I definitely belong to the individualist camp, though I know many people on the other side. For example, I know from many long and detailed conversations that my mother thinks that social and cultural factors are far more important than individual temperament.
I have been told more than once that, as a Euro-American white male that I represent the dominant culture, and as such I am at least partially complicit in institutionalized oppression. Interestingly, among those who have told me this are those among the degreed, credentialed, and professional elites -- not Euro-American white males, but people who nevertheless exercise an enormous degree of control over the lives of others because of the professional position that they hold.
If you have read some of the other things I've written you'll know that this sort of thing strikes home with me since I am autodidact with no degree, no credentials, and no institutional affiliation. From my point of view, the individual's position in society is far more a determinant of their attitude than their social, ethnic, or cultural background. A Marxist would say that I am simply making this claim in order to justify my position among the elites of society (elite in virtue of my birth, and not in virtue of any accomplishments or lack therefore), but I reject this.
Just as some people believe (like myself) that individual temperament is decisive, while others believe that socio-cultural forces are decisive in life, so too different people feel alienated or oppressed by different things. Some people feel alienated by the world in which they live, the world of the present, by their particular social circumstances, and by the society in culture in which they live. Other people feel alienated by history.
Alienation is a powerful experience -- the sort of thing that shapes character -- and this is why those who believe in socio-cultural determination of the individual view it as a determining influence. But, the thing is, at least to a certain extent you choose (or have a reflexive visceral reaction to) that part of the world or that part of history that alienates you.
Someone who is not part of the dominant culture and who feels profoundly alienated by the circumstances, may receive a degree and come to closely identify with a particular academic tradition or a particular professional elite that they have joined as a result of their individual efforts. They may see themselves as representing a class or ethnic interest, but in fact they represent an individual interest of their own with which they have chosen to associate themselves.
Such an individual may feel profoundly alienated by a history they they feel excludes them or their people, but they make a place for themselves in the world in which they are not only not alienated, but in which they have a considerable measure of autonomy and power in shaping their own lives and the lives of others.
Though I have been told that I am a representative of the dominant culture, I am about as powerless as anyone could be, and I often feel profoundly alienated both by history and by my particular circumstances. I will give you a couple of examples of things that might never make the slightest impact or impression on you, but which which I cannot but help notice.
Some years ago I was watching an excellent National Geographic special on the archaeology of Herod's Caesaria. One of the archaeologists interviewed, after discussing the scientific joy of discovery that archaeologists experience when working in the field, later went on to frame the experience in much more personal terms, and discussed how Paul made some of the first Christian converts in Caesaria. From the way he spoke of this, he obviously felt closer to this historical tradition because of his self-identification as a Christian interested in the earliest history of a tradition of which he counted himself a part.
As an atheist in an overwhelmingly Christian-identifying society, I usually find myself on the outside looking in, and I don't feel any historical closeness to the tradition in the way that this archaeologist expressed in an interview. I would, on the contrary, identify much more closely with the Romans of Caesaria, whom I can read as contemporaries, and with whom I share much more of a Weltanschauung than I do with Christians.
There are not only dominant cultures, considered as a more-or-less static feature of the structure of society today, there are also dominant traditions that extend throughout history, and the particular expression of social power relations in the world today is simply an outgrowth of the dominant historical tradition, which is a much larger force in absolute terms than the particular arrangements of society at the moment.
Here is another and more recent example of how I have felt alienated. I have owned a copy of the Oxford Companion to Philosophy for some time, but I have only lately started reading it carefully. It is much more entertainingly written that I expected, with surprising personal touches in several of the articles, but it also is pervasively aligned with a conception of "professionalism" in philosophy that I not only reject, but which makes me rather uncomfortable.
In the article on philosophy: world and underworld, by none other than the fiery opponent of institutionalized power Paul Feyerabend, I find references to, "An honest professional philosopher..." and, "...we move beyond the domain of academic philosophy..." In the article on Unlikely Philosophical Propositions, written by the editor of this book, Ted Honderich, I find this: "There is some philosopher, decent enough and paid for his work, whose list contains exactly the contradictories of the propositions above."
When I read things like this, as a philosopher who is not paid for my work, I go through it again in my mind substituting "institutionalized" for "professional" and "academic." So I read these passages as, "an honest institutionalized philosopher" and, "we move beyond the domain of institutionalized philosophy."
I identify with my individual interests and am alienated by events that affect my individual interests. I don't especially identify with my class interests or group interests, and I am not especially alienated by events that affect my class or group interest. A Marxist would tell me that I am fooling myself, but I would tell the Marxist that he or she was actually acting on their individual interest when they claimed to be acting on the part of a class or a group.
I think that these (admittedly unlikely) experiences of alienation have made me a better philosopher. My first reaction to things is skeptical. I do not assume that I will find myself in the comfortable majority. On the contrary, I assume that I will find myself in the minority, and I am usually right about this. And so I view the world always at a distance, always tentatively, always critical of what I find, and always critical of myself, pushing myself to understand things in the terms in which others understand things, so that I will know why they do the things they do, even if these are not the things that I would do.
This constitutes a robust exercise in what Piaget called "perspective taking," and it is a salutary exercise for the intellect. I recommend it.
