Page 53 - The ISA Handbook in Contemporary Sociology

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24 THE ISA HANDBOOK IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLOGY

out that religion was an essential part of That is why, as Lukacs asserted, explorations
hegemony long before capitalism emerged. of alienation have indeed moved beyond
Despite the fact that sociology is reluctant the factory to culture, community, politics,
to deal with spiritual alienation, Porpora and the structure of the self. As an organizing
(2005: 246), much like Fromm (1965), main- orientation, alienation enables self-criticism
tains that human beings need rootedness, and as well as critique. With the pointed instru-
a frame of reference and devotion, for the ments of alienation theory, researchers can
moral aspect of selfhood which is emotional uncover the malevolent core of exuberance
and not a matter of rational calculation. (Prosono, 2005) and the unwitting invasion
Clearly, neither the fundamentalisms that of macro-structures into intimacies (Kalekin-
negate all achievements of modernity nor the Fishman, 2005). Beyond these, thinking of
mass consumerism in which the accumula- alienation in dialectical terms, however,
tion of goods becomes one’s primary aim in enables sociologists to show both how,
life and the basis of one’s identity, fulfills through the insidious colonization of con-
human needs. Today, it is possible, however, sciousness, people are incited to violence,
to see the reinstatement of religion in differ- and how this violence impels them to active
ent types of configurations that do indeed resistance (Gibson, 2005). Yet again, a
foster seeds of de-alienation. In his view, dialectical understanding of alienation makes
there are such seeds in the traditions of all it possible to discover how oppression can be
religions. Among them are the group proce- transformed into creativity (Ahponen, 2005;
dures for learning the Holy Books of Judaism Langman, 2005a), how desperation and hope
(Heilman, 1984), the mystical experiences of are intertwined, and how the unending rich-
the Sufi in Islam. And he agrees that there ness of human experience is a constant chal-
need be no contradictions between Christianity lenge to discern opportunities as well as
and socialism, even in its most radical form hazards (Kellner, 2005).
(Zizˇek, 2000). Denying that blind fundamen- Marx saw alienation as a concept rooted
talisms that deepen alienation are the only in contradiction, as the core of conflictual
channel for religious expression, Porpora structure and the heart of conflicted con-
(2005: 247) sees the various forms of sciousness. At the same time he realized its
alliances with a higher spirit as fertile ground dialectical potential: out of the tormented
for de-alienation. consciousness in a community fragmented
by conflict, people are capable of discerning
the emergent potential for agency, and the
means to re-humanization. In a word, as
CONCLUDING REMARKS conflicts ripen, it becomes possible to dis-
cover how to reconfigure cooperation. The
During the first half of the twentieth century, dialectical conceptualization and methodol-
Lukacs (1971/1920) argued that commodity ogy of alienation that are demonstrated in
fetishism was no longer limited to objects recent writings provide ingress into the
produced for their exchange value on the dynamic tangle that reflects this vision of
market. Reification, embedded within the social reality. While sociology, like so many
very categories of bourgeois thought, had other disciplines, has its fashions and chang-
come to colonize the totality of conscious- ing interests, some basic concepts of the
ness – and by implication, subjectivity as discipline, among them certainly the concept
well. Thus proletariat understandings of self of alienation, endure and have as much, if not
and society were framed within the alienated more, explanatory power today than in the past.
bourgeois discourses that sustain domination. In a globalizing age of mass consumption, with
In short, the key to understanding capitalist unprecedented kinds of advanced technologies
society writ large was ascribed to alienation. of production and communication, the concept