Alienation in the Post Cold War Era
Chapter 4
How Alienation Affects
Our Basic Psyche
(page 5)
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How the Herd Mentality Affects the Basic Features of the Alienated Person
The need to overcome separateness is almost hardwired inside us. It goes back to the animal protection by the herd, and later to the apes’ security with the tribe. While exposing our separateness by shattering the security of the herd, capitalist society does not give the healthy alternative of becoming full humans: the alternative of transcending the security of the tribe and developing our full capacity to love, use objective reasoning and develop our separate independent individuality without endangering the oneness with others. When we cannot become full humans we must run back and seek the conformity of the herd. Very few individuals can resist this pressure. As long as society, through work, family, and friends prohibits the development of our human potential, we cannot distinguish ourselves from the herd. The only alternative is to fall into pieces and go crazy. Fromm summarizes how conformism is forced upon us in modern capitalist society:
“The alienated person, as we have tried to describe him in this chapter, cannot be healthy. Since he experiences himself as a thing, an investment, to be manipulated by himself and by others, he is lacking in a sense of self. This lack of self creates deep anxiety. The anxiety engendered by confronting him with the abyss of nothingness is more terrifying than even the torture of hell. In the vision of hell, I am punished and tortured — in the vision of nothingness I am driven to border of madness — because I cannot say “I” any more. If the modern age has been rightly called the age of anxiety, it is primarily because of this anxiety engendered by the lack of self. Inasmuch as ‘I am as you desire me’ — I am not. I am anxious, dependent on approval of others, constantly trying to please. The alienated person feels inferior whenever he suspects himself of not being in line. Since his sense of worth is based on approval as the reward for conformity, he feels naturally threatened in his sense of self and in his self-esteem by any feeling, thought or action which could be suspected of being a deviation. Yet, inasmuch as he is human and not an automaton, he cannot help deviating , hence he must feel afraid of disapproval all the time. As a result he has to try all the harder to conform, to be approved of, to be successful. Not the voice of his conscience gives him strength and security but the feeling of not having lost the close touch with the herd.”[8]
This primitive need to be touch with the herd still is rooted and programmed in our brain from the animalistic stage of development, and yet, it plays a powerful role in a society that increasingly based on humans who are feel separated from each other. Our ancient instinct to belong to the herd or the tribe, to become like everybody else as the last resort for security, indicates how primitive and undeveloped is yet our human psychology.
Any deep psychoanalysis normally shows that many of our actions are based on the need for approval. Many people’s conscious feelings and thoughts are just rationalizations for an emotional need to get approval. People in a group use the facade of the ego to get approval. When they portray, for example, a “pleasant” personality, they may feel and think that they enjoy being with the group. But a deeper analysis of their dreams and unconscious feelings will reveal that they use the facade of the ego to get approval from the group which is used to ease the deep insecurities and anxieties. The fear of rejection is the most fundamental driving force in modern humans who do not have the sense of deep self. At the present society we completely lost the sense of belonging to the tribe of the indigenous people; thus our fear of rejection has risen in proportion to the lost feeling of belonging. The farther we lose the old connection to the tribe, the more we feel the pains of our separateness, and the more we want to escape it by pleasing others.
One can get an approval from a social group in many ways. Let take few examples of this drive. I can be a young person who drinks and takes drugs and gets high with my friends. The fact that the drinking and drugs lull my real feelings of loneliness and anxiety is a plus — other young people are also attracted to the same experience to escape the same deep anxiety and inability to connect. So together we form a gang of “cool” young people where the experience of “highs” together give us the sense of belonging. To belong to such a group and get approval from it, however, I cannot question the rituals of getting high and drunk. In other words, in belonging to such a group I lose my emotional and intellectual integrity.
Approval does not have to come in a form of tender love or solidarity. On the contrary, approval in our society is associated many times with negative actions and psychology. For example, I can get approval and the sense of belonging when I am a “tough” businessman who is ruthless against his opponents. As long as I am successful and feared by others, and as long as my opponents act the same way, I have a “tribe” that gives me security and approves my success. I achieve my “success” within my company through the symbiotic negative relations that I have with my subordinates and opponents. I may be an asshole. But in a culture where many want to be assholes loaded with money, my negative symbiotic relations with others gives me a sense of distorted approval and belonging.
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[8] Eric Fromm, The Sane Society, page 181.