<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div></div><div><div>Thank you Rajani, for this interesting essay. So much here I would endorse, that we seek the felicity of 'warm kindred relations', and that our separation from nature promotes disease.</div><div><br></div><div>One aspect of alienation that you don't name, though it is implicit in this article, is alienation from ourselves. (Did the 'self' exist for Marx outside of its position in the economic and historical structure of society?)</div><div><br></div><div>What we are seeing currently is a challenge to conventional gender divisions, based on claims to the 'validity of subjective experience'. LGBTQ plus non binary offer a whole range of alternatives to those who feel constricted by conventional gender assignments. This choice is being given to children as young as 10 years old within the UK education system, and the UK Labour Party has recently agreed to accept applicants for women's positions from those who 'self-identify as women'.</div><div><br></div><div>Questioning gender divisions also challenges our whole notion of what we think of as 'masculine' and 'feminine' qualities. </div><div><br></div><div>What Is happening now within EM (to use your terminology) is that there is beginning to be a recognition of the validity of a subjective experience, which is not tied to social norms. This freedom allows us to see that though there may be distinct biological differences, (and even these vary much more than is generally supposed) between masculine and feminine, this does not define qualitative differences between genders. Women are free to be as 'masculine' as they want and vice versa. This is acknowledged within enlightenment philosophies, by proposing that everybody has both masculine and feminine qualities within them, 'the yin yang paradigm'. Although this makes a nonsense of the distinction between masculine and feminine qualities, yet it seems difficult for people to abandon that mindset.</div><div><br></div><div> Perhaps it is time for you to re-assess your thoughts on this as quoted from Wikipaedia: "that men and women are distinct sub-species embodying a "paradigm of masculinity" and a "paradigm of femininity", respectively, correlated to violence and nurturance, that are basically instinctual in nature despite their cultural variation".</div></div><div><br></div><div>Anna</div><div><br></div><div><br>On 11 Jul 2018, at 03:27, Michel Bauwens <<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div><div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>From: <b class="gmail_sendername">r kanth</b> <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:involutegandhian@gmail.com">involutegandhian@gmail.com</a>></span><br>Date: Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 3:54 AM<br>Subject: Fwd: From Rajani: On Alienation: : A Non-Eurocentric View<br>To: Michel Bauwens <<a href="mailto:michelsub2004@gmail.com">michelsub2004@gmail.com</a>><br><br><br><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><br><br><div dir="ltr">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b> Further Notes on Euro-Modernism*<span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span> </span><span> <wbr> <wbr> </span><span> </span>On Alienation<span></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b> </b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>Alienation</i> is a
major theme in European discourse, both theological and philosophical, in its
EM <span> </span>(EuroModernist) phase.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Marx , one of the great canonicals in that <span> </span>august lineage<i>, e.g.,</i><span> </span>noted several <span> </span>aspects of alienation: <span> </span>of workers - <span> </span>from their product, from the production
process(run by owners/agents) , from each other(via ‘competition’) , <span> </span>and from their own <i>species essence</i> <i>(<a name="m_-6961411603529116355_m_8984962414658614183__Hlk519007880">Gattungswesen</a></i><span>).</span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">I wish to identify the last as specially important, if in a
marginally different sense, <span> </span>as far as
our ‘species-essence’ goes– perhaps – from Marx.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">I also wish to add another species of alienation, <span> </span><span> </span>a <span> </span>little less relevant, perhaps, <span> </span>to a <span> </span>child
of the enlightenment, <span> </span>and <span> </span>an heir to industrial society, <span> </span>like Marx: <i>i.e</i>.
<i>alienation from nature.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>*</i> <span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>Gattungswesen.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">I have argued that , <i>contra
</i>all the norms of EM, <span> </span>we as a species
are <i>affective </i>beings, led to seek the
felicity of warm kindred relations, <i>instinctually:</i>
familial, <span> </span>co-operative, <span> </span>and communal.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">EM, <span> </span>by setting up its
<i>alternate </i><span> </span>template of competition, acquisitivenessness,
individualist, <span> </span>self-seeking behavior <span> </span>(as in the pseudo-science of “Economics”), offers
a paradigm strikingly opposed to this human essence.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">This sets up not <span> </span><span> </span>so-called ‘cognitive dissonance’ – <span> </span>a <span> </span>buzz-word
if ever there was one - <span> </span>but , even deeper,
an <i>existential nightmare</i> for humans <i>compelled to act against their very own <span> </span>natures.</i><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>This is the <span> </span>ontic basis of angst and despair, noted by existentialist
writers, <span> </span>for generations.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">This is why <span> </span><span> </span>the so-called <span> </span>‘happiness index’ is so low in all societies <i>most ‘advanced’ in EM norms</i>, such as the
US; and why the UK, uabashedly, recently set up , no less, a ministry for ‘loneliness’.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">*<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>Nature.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">We are , <i>contra </i>the
shibboleths of Biblical ideology, part of nature,<i> i.e</i> ., we are <i>animals</i><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Even <span> </span>the radical Marx,
echoing his own <span> </span>Judeo-Christian <span> </span>heritage, <span> </span>spoke of “Man’ <span> </span>proudly as the ‘sovereign of creation”.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">He hadn’t <span> </span>studied <span> </span>Darwin (Darwin’s classic work <span> </span>was published, late: <span> </span>the same year as <span> </span>one of Marx’s classic works: 1859).<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>At any rate, we are
part of nature</i>: and when we are kept away from it<i>, <span> </span>as we are, more or less, <span> </span>in all EM societies,</i> in arid cityscapes of
cement and steel, our ‘spirits sag’ <span> </span>(all
but unconsciously) and we experience<span> </span>an
ineffable <span> </span>distress (poetically depicted <span> </span>in Keats’ To One Who Has Been Long in City
Pent’ verse) .<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Presumably parks exist , here and there, in cities, to alleviate
that disorder.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>It is a unique form of
alienation</i> – <i>i.e.</i> <i>suffering</i> - <span> </span>lifted <span> </span>by that trope of <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>‘<i>One
Touch of Nature”, as Shakespeare had it, <span> </span>that “ Makes the Whole World Kin" </i><span> </span>.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">It is <span> </span>a misery quite <span> </span>akin to that caused by the rupture with <i>Gattungswesen.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">*<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">To sum up.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">In my view, we are, as a species, <span> </span>alienated when separated from <i>family, community, <span> </span>and nature.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Marx, subscribing – as did most <span> </span>all his peers in political economy - <span> </span>- to EM’s (philosophical) <i>materialism</i> , <span> </span>prioritised <span> </span><i>human
engagement in production</i> as critical (‘work’ <span> </span>is an important concept <span> </span>in Protestant -Calvinist - theology as well), <span> </span>whence his ‘alienations’ , leastways, <span> </span>begin in that domain.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>I theorise, au
contraire, <span> </span>the priority of <span> </span>family, culture, <span> </span>and society, within <span> </span>the geist of our species.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Native American children, cruelly and brutishly separated <span> </span>from their families/culture/ and society by
their <span> </span>oppressors, as part of an ‘experiment’
to ‘civilise the savage’ , <span> </span><span> </span>apparently died ‘mysteriously’ in large numbers,
or so it is reported.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>No: no mystery.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">It is explained by what I argue, above: <i>no EM philosophy can ‘explain’ it.</i><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>This alienation is
critical</i>: at its extreme, <i>we suffer a
loss of being, of sanity, <span> </span>of wholeness, and
incur a debilitating <span> </span>anomie when so separated.<span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><i>I will repeat: when
separated <span> </span>from family, community, and
nature, <span> </span>we experience a <span> </span>critical breach of what we could term the wholeness
of being.</i><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">For humans, involuntary <span> </span>isolation could well be <span> </span>the ultimate <span> </span>terror (which is why being put away’ in
solitary ‘ is such a barbaric mode of ‘correction’).<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Such <span> </span>‘isolation’ is
now, sadly, <span> </span>near-chronic <span> </span>in EM societies (<i>vide </i>Ministries of Loneliness)<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">It may well account for the <span> </span>unmistakable madness of our (EM) age, in the
final stages of what I have termed, in my recent book (2017) <span> </span>‘Human<span> </span>Devolution’.<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">I will <span> </span>conclude by
repeating my <span> </span>principal thesis : <i>in virtually Everything it claims , represents,
<span> </span>or commends, Euromodernism is categorically
mistaken : <span> </span><span> </span>and , worse, <span> </span>more often <span> </span>than not, positively injurious <span> </span>to human existence. <span></span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">The sooner we see through, and reject, its many charades, <span> </span>the sooner we might have a chance to save what
<span> </span>still remains of our social, natural , and emotive/personal, world.<span></span></p>
<p class="m_-6961411603529116355m_8984962414658614183gmail-MsoListParagraph" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><i>*EuroModernism </i></b>, <i>or EM, for short, is my term for the <span> </span>specific form of Modernism that Europe first
invented, and imposed on itself, and its benighted populace, and then exported <span> </span>- perforce, to its everlasting detriment - <span> </span><span> </span>to the
world at large.</i><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> </span><span> </span><span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> <wbr>
</span>R<span> </span>E <span> </span>F<span>
</span>E<span> </span>R<span> </span>E<span>
</span>N<span> </span>C<span> </span>E<span> </span>S<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Kanth, R.<span> </span><i>Breaking with the Enlightenment</i>, NJ:
Humanities Press, 1997<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">_______<span> </span><i>Farewell to Modernism,</i> NY: Peter Lang,
2017<span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-size:9pt;line-height:107%">[©R.Kanth
2018]<span> </span><span></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span> </span></p>
<br></div>
</div><br></div>
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