Excerpted from Wikipedia on 1-Nov-2014
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_alienation
Alienation, a sociological concept developed by several classical and contemporary theorists, is “a condition in social relationships reflected by a low degree of integration or common values and a high degree of distance or isolation between individuals, or between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment.” The concept has many discipline-specific uses, and can refer both to a personal psychological state (subjectively) and to a type of social relationship (objectively).
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The American sociologist C. Wright Mills conducted a major study of alienation in modern society with “White Collar” in 1951, describing how modern consumption-capitalism has shaped a society where you have to sell your personality in addition to your work. Melvin Seeman was part of a surge in alienation research during the mid-20th century when he published his paper, “On the Meaning of Alienation”, in 1959 (Senekal, 2010b: 7-8). Seeman used the insights of Marx, Emile Durkheim and others to construct what is often considered a model to recognize the five prominent features of alienation: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness, isolation and self-estrangement (Seeman, 1959).[16] Seeman later added a sixth element (cultural estrangement), although this element does not feature prominently in later discussions of his work.
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Social isolation
Social isolation refers to “The feeling of being segregated from one’s community”.[26] Neal and Collas (2000: 114) emphasize the centrality of social isolation in the modern world: “While social isolation is typically experienced as a form of personal stress, its sources are deeply embedded in the social organization of the modern world. With increased isolation and atomization, much of our daily interactions are with those who are strangers to us and with whom we lack any ongoing social relationships.”
Quotations
“It was at the highest point in the arc of a bridge that I became aware suddenly of the depth and bitterness of my feelings about modern life, and of the profoundness for my yearning for a more vivid, simple, and peaceable world.”
– John Cheever, The Angel of the Bridge
“Most people are on the world, not in it – have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them – undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.”
– John Muir