The thread to discuss alienation (no r9k please)

Is the Marxist concept of alienation still applicable fully to the empty lives of most people nowadays? Does Marx say anything about the erosion of public space and breaking down of social bonds?

The way communalism approaches this problem is interesting, what counters to Marxists have for that?

I'm reaching the point in my life where life begins to crawl. Every day is the same old shit. And unlike other people back in the day I don't have a family to go back to, no one to really sacrifice for that keeps me going. Feel free to discuss feels too itt but please no r9k shit

The Frankfurt School deals with alienation at length thanks to their psychoanalytic toolset [Fromm and Marcuse are good], but generally old-hat Marxists are ill-equipped to speak much at length on the subject without deteriorating into dribble about production or value.

Honestly, if you want to go full Marxist nightmare mode you need to go to Baudrillard to understand the hideousness that stalks the world these days.

I should also add that Hannah Arendt and Max Weber are non-Marxists that deal on the issue of alienation. Weber particularly. Inb4 you fucking liberal scum reee

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Haven't heard of ardent, what's the jist of her work?

I've posted here long enough to know that ANY thread that devolves into nogf posting is doomed to angry autistic screeching on both sides and then deletion

maybe women shouldn't be telling men what they do or don't deserve

Not an Arendt scholar, but here goes.

So. Sometimes alienation and atomization are used interchangeably, but in general I think they refer to a core issue: Fromm's definition of "man's separation from himself". I think this holds if we accept humans are intrinsically social. The destruction of the social is therefore alienation and a distance from the self.

So. Arendt. The tl;dr or Arendt is that she fucks Heidegger a bunch and then experiences the issue of the totalitarian bureaucracy and the capacity for it to utterly ravage social bonds while moulding them. That is: to create a totalitarian state, society must be effectively smashed to bits and individuals atomized from others and, preferably, themselves.

The public space must therefore be utterly destroyed, as it is the premier locus where people might have/make bonds that aren't in the purview of power. As one might suspect, said public space is important to her and attempts to foreclose the public space are utterly ruinous, as it is how the world can be experienced in a wholesome way. Her contention is that social atomization and the rootless masses of Germany was the caulk that built the entire edifice of Nazism. The obliteration of secondary society groups is the fullest exertion of power, and an efficient one given that it allows their reconstitution into forms that cement and exert power by virtue of their form as bureaucracy. Atomized bits are easier to mould, shape, and can be pushed around, humiliated, and otherwise abused without incident. This situation further cements power, as no single individual is strong enough to resist, and all come to be terrorized.

Best books: Origins of Totalitarianism, Eichmann in Jerusalem

That sounds extremely interesting and relevant to me thanks for letting me know about her. I'll go download the origins of totalitarianism audiobook right now

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