Alienation on the Rise

 

Karl Marx, existentialists and others incorporated the positive aspects of man’s potential put forth by the early prophets. However, they warned about the influences and conflicts that confront and hobble man from reaching his full actualization. This disquisition focuses on the alienation, exploitation and the sociopathic character traits of the 400 plus indicted in Trump’s capital attack.

Alienation is when one’s labor does not fulfill one’s intellectual, physical, spiritual, and religious needs and as a result hobbles his human fulfillment. Some psychological aspects of alienation include satiation. Satiation, per Kurt Lewin, is the process or activity which begins with a positive valence {pleasurable] and eventually becomes a negative valence [non-pleasurable] over time. Think of the beginning of a videogame that’s played over and over and over again. After a while, the videogame become stale, as in satiation, boring and of disinterest. Time for a new game with a positive valence.

Later, psychologists deepened and expanded on Karl Marx’s brilliant concept of alienation incorporating a number of models. They suggested the relevance of the following 5 factors:  1. Incorporating Julian Rotter’s social learning theory, Locus of Control depicts the degree to which an individual is able to control the important events occurring in his life space. Some individuals differ as to whether they do or do not perceive reinforcement as a result of their own behavior. Research suggests that externally controlled individuals perceive that reinforcement is not under their own control but is perceived more due to chance or luck. Thus a potential for that behavior to recur is lessened. Alienated individuals tend to perceive they are not masters of their fate in that reinforcements are outside of their control. 2. A sense of Meaningless is another aspect of alienation .Employing Kurt Lewin’s Field Theory, with the concept of expectancy, they found that a sense of meaningless occurs when an individual has a lower expectation or non-expectancy of achieving his goals and/or having a satisfactory outcome. 3. A sense of Normlessness occurs when the individual has a high expectancy pertaining to outcome and that the ends justify the means even if it takes asocial behaviors to satisfy one’s goals. 4. Self-estrangement, another aspect of alienation is when one compromises their interests; does not meet their intrinsic needs and/or relies on extrinsic things, others or objects for satisfactory outcomes. In this situation, the individual’s needs are not primary but secondary in his interactions. 5. Mental illness, per Sigmund Freud, is another component of alienation. Moreover, mental illness often suggests impaired morals and exploitation of others.  Selfless consumption and engagement in nonessential activities are also symptoms of alienation.

With Neoliberalism, the unions diminished, automation surfaced, gun purchases skyrocketed and the corporations flourished. The income gap between the haves and have-nots accelerated with production, consumption and profits becoming the standard. Wages stagnated, made in America went elsewhere, and the American Dream [a dream happens when one is asleep and projects desires, wants, and fears, in the unconscious, with illusions or fictions] became the American Nightmare. Sleep disturbance is a major issue in this country and therefore interferes with dream occurrence. Health issues like obesity, drugs alcohol became more prevalent examples of alienation and became the norm.

More and more women, especially from lower socio-economic families, entered the workforce in unskilled labor pursuing the American Dream. With that being said, there are now, more than likely, both parents becoming psychologically alienated with their labor. With two alienated parents, a dysfunctional family becomes the likely outcome. To no one’s surprise, research on dysfunctional families found behavior patterns of acting out children, school issues, and other delinquent behaviors.  More specifically, the likelihood of the 400 plus rioters had behavioral characteristics related to alienation and delinquency during their childhood are as follows: 1.Symptoms of depression, mood swings, anxiety, and hostility 2. Impaired Interpersonal relationships. The joining and association with other misfits and hate group’s 3. Mutual hostility with parents. With parental rejection, negative attitudes towards school and education 4. These disturbed, rejects contemporary American culture with its emphasis on competition, materialistic values and had lack of concern for social justice, equality of opportunity, civil rights, and increased racism and hate around immigration 5. These disturbed had a tendency to want to be noticed even though they were unclear about life and future goals 6. These disturbed had negative self-concepts, did poorly in school and disliked school 7. These disturbed had few friends, non-meaningful  relationships, were poorly adjusted, less considerate to others, less friendly, less responsible, less liked and more antagonistic to authority. As a consequence of these behavioral characteristics, the risk of developing an antisocial exploitive sociopathic character is highly problematic. It should be noted that character determines action, feelings and thoughts and not vice versa.

With the above being said, let’s return to childhood for the 400 plus indicted rioters for a moment. Early on, prior to language, rationality and moral development, children learn right and wrong based on the parent’s conception of right and wrong. What’s good and pleasant for the parent is right and what’s wrong or bad for the parent is bad. The child very quickly learns that words like “good,” “I love you” and smiles, open arms, soft voice etc. are associated with good behavior  and pleasing to the parent; and words like “no,”” bad,”” stop that” and gestures like frowns, clenched fist, slaps and harsh tones are associated with anger ,being bad  and displeasing an angry parent. In other words, the child’s learns about the notions of moral or amoral behavior irrespective of his intellect, wisdom, or morality development. Moreover, moral or amoral behaviors [right and wrong] are based with the foundation of early on or primitive emotions and not developed on a full intellectual and moral understanding.

When these fragile, alienated and emotionally weak with amoral tendencies these individuals easily identify with an authoritarian leader to meet their unfulfilled needs and continued antisocial behavioral patterns. They are unconsciously and/or consciously  drawn to that leader’s accumulation of celebrity status, money, power, prestige, things and/or possessions , exploiting others, being above the law, not being politically correct which are associated and prized by many in our competitive ,capitalistic, political and economic system . With identification, they easily take on that leader’s sense of amorality, with the ends regardless of ethical or legal justify the means. In other words, the identifiers take on the exploitive, racist, criminal attributes of the leader without rational reason or thought. When the leader says things like: the election was stolen; takeback democracy; fight, fight, fight and March on the capital, the followers follow. With obedience comes love and approval. With disobedience comes punishment and rejection. It’s a sin to be disobedient to the leader. Just like in childhood, believe, without critical thought, the leader regardless of reality of circumstances, morality, or criminal behavior. Follow, be obedient and be a good boy because that pleases that authoritarian figure and he will protect you.  The stage was set by Trump and the 400 plus individuals with antisocial exploitive sociopathic character traits submitted and followed like sheep, regardless of consequences, his direction. The manipulation that the election was stolen was simply a rationalization.

With that being said, even though we have a white powerful capitalistic economic system, a white Republican national minority along with institutions run and led by whites, the less -educated whites are becoming more and more alienated while being threatened on many fronts. They are becoming more powerless, meaningless, being left behind and irrelevant. It’s as if they are in quicksand and they are sinking with no chance or opportunity for escape. It should be no one’s surprise that automatic rifles [Jason Crow, an Army Ranger now in the House of Representatives said that, with his experience in the Middle East , those weapons are designed for mass killing] in the hands of alienated whites-Sandy Hook, Parkland, Columbine, Atlanta and now Boulder get their five minutes of fame on TV by killing others. Ban and recall these killing weapons. Clinton banned them and Bush did not. Will this pandemic of alienation killing continue? Yes I Will background checks reduce the number of mass killings?  Maybe, it won’t result in increases. Will the availability of mental health reduce the number of killings?  Alienation is not a diagnosis that present insurance would cover and these asocial, introverted low self-esteem with impaired conscience types would not likely seek treatment anyway.

We, Homo sapiens, have created significant fear and anxiety within our country. Within the last 50 years, rising income disparity; non affordable higher education; increased alienation; a shrinking white skinned nation; an expanding people of color nation; epidemic of killing weapons; increased normlessness of moral and ethical values; increased voting restrictions; a dumbing down of intelligence, wisdom and increased irrationality; increased mental disturbance with increased prejudice and hate; a number of these rioters has served in the military or law enforcement-they know how to take orders and how to kill. Service members have an increased probability of returning with traumatic brain injury and/or PTSD.

Taking into account the life experiences of these 400 plus rioters, these alienated individuals have severe mental disturbance. Not only are they alienated, they mistrust, they are suspicious and/or paranoid, emotionally shallow, seek immediate gratification, avoid responsibility and disregard the rights and feelings of other individuals. They may be good talkers, seem warm and friendly, may be superficially informed, are irresponsible and easily fool, exploit, take and manipulate others in ways similar to their leader. In essence, the ingredients for obedience, exploitation, and submission to follow the political authoritarian Trump was perfect based on their exploitive, alienated sociopathic character traits. Beware!