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Winston Gereluk
Alienation in Education:
A Marxian Re-Definition
The alienation of man in modern technological society emerged as a concern central to many social issues of the 1960s. In that decade, the term "alienation" was appropriated as a watchword by an assortment of disaffected people who used it as a political, sociological, or psychological concept to in- dicate their perceived separation from the main stream of so- ciety. Not the least of its usage has been in the field of edu- cation al rhetoric where, very simply, it has been repeatedly held that the large Kafkaesque institutions that fulfill the function of formaI education in our society are in one way or another responsible for, or at least characteristic of, much of the alienation in this society. This study is an attempt to arrive at the meaning of "alienation" as it is used in that context. In the process, it will examine not just alienation, but the family of concepts and explanations that surround the use of that term. !ts main object will be to dispel sorne of the "woolly" notions that have underpinned the agonizing, criticizing, and recommendations for change that have been directed at existing practice in the schools. In the process, it will illustrate how, for tasks such as this one, certain modes of explanation are more suitable than others. If this study refers to "schooling" and not "educa- tion," it is simply because no agreement at aIl exists amongst educational theorists as to the meaning of the term "educa- tion," while there is unanimity on the question of "schooling"
- it is the pro cess that takes place in the schools.
Winston Gereluk
The motive for producing this study (besides a strong per- sonal revulsion for "culture people" and their jargon) is the suspicion that the use of the term "alienation" to refer to some of the apparently undesirable aspects of modern sehooling has more often than not been marked by confusion and mys- tification. It sees in such constructions as "Schools are alienat- ing" or "Schools promote alienation," a vague, ambiguous use of the term as a negative "catch-aIl," or worse yet, as a part of the repertoire of quasi-psychological jargonisms which the "new psychology" people have built up in order to categorize their wor Id conveniently.
the aHenation expia nation
The use of the alienation explanation to apply to schooling orig- inated in dissatisfaction with some aspects of modern school- ing as it was perceived by critics. The dissatisfaction might have concerned, for instance, the pronounced apathy, the las- situde, or the quiet resentment exhibited by either students or teachers, or any number of similarly unsettling types of be- havior found in the school. In response to the need to explain such behavior, to apply a term that denoted something more definite or certain than just a vague uneasiness on the part of the observer, the situation was characterized as "alienated," or "alienating;" the people were then said to be suffering from "alienation." Furthermore, the application of the term almost always implied a desire for change and, of course, the analysis of the problem, or the meaning of the concept "alienation" adopted by the critic was the basis of the change he rec- ommended. The classic text on alienation, the one that has provided
the precedent to many of the current uses of the concept, was
provided by the young Karl Marx in his es say, "Alienated Labor." In this essay, Marx addressed himself to the general problem of labor, pointing out ways in which people in capitalist society are alienated because of the social conditions through which they must pro duce their lives. On the one hand, it is possible to understand people as alienated from the PRODUCT of their labors. From this point- of-view, the laborer is separated from the product of his labor, when instead of affirming his humanity, the object produced stands opposed to, becomes alien to, or independent of the producer. It is a case of the laborer turning against himself, for the product of labor is only, after aIl, "labor which has
Winston Gereluk
does not experience himself as the subject of his own acts, as a thinking, feeling, loving person, but he experiences himself only in the things he has created, as the objects of the externalized mani- festations of his powers. He is in touch with 'himself only by sur- rendering himself to the objects of his creation. 5 dehumanization - This variation reveals that one of the bases of the alienation explanation is that it depends on a preconception of the full-blown human being, relative to which the people being perceived are less than human. Paul Tillich's lament is most common:
Western technical society had produced methods of adjusting persons to its demands in production and consumption which are less brutal, but in the long run more effective than totalitarian repression. They depersonalize not by commanding, but by providing - providing, namely, what makes human creativity superfluous. 8 emasculatic:m - This variant expresses the critics' concern that the people under observation have had their humanity "torn out" or rendered sterile by long periods of repression by inhuman conditions. Jules Henry articulated this particular suspicion about the effect that the schools have on children. The function of education has never been to free the mind and spirit of man, but to bind them; and to the end that the mind and spirit of his children shaH never escape, Homo Sa.piens has employed praise, ridicule, admonition, accusation, mutilation, and even torture to chain them to the culture pattern. 7
impoverishment - Another explanation holds that the ad- verse effect of the schools is the manner in which they starve children, emotionally, spiritually, psychically, etc. John Holt provides an example of the manner in which school critics
have employed this simple physical analogy to convey their
message.
Nobociy starts off stupid ••. What happens is that the [natural capacity for learning and inteHectual growth] is destroyed, and more than by any other one thing, by the proeess that we misname educa- tion •... 8
outward dependency - This popular variant contains a con-
cern central to liberal theory; that the healthy, full-functioning
human being is one who is free in the sense of being self-
sufficient. Schools, according to Abraham Maslow, are respon-
sible for a profound illness when they produce children who are "outer directed" or "deficit-motivated" in bondage to others. He explains:
The deficit-motivated man is far more dependent on other people than is the man who is predominantly growth-motivated. He is more
Alienation in Education
"interested," more needful, more attached, more desirous. 9 regimentation - A similar variation exists in the minds of critics who fear that modern North American society is be- coming more and more the Orwellian nightmare, demanding of aU its members passive, robot-like participation. Paul Goodman is the leading proponent of this point-of-view, and in his accounts refers very often to the role of the schools which "less and less represent any human values but simply adjustment to a mechanical system."'o
an examination of the explanations
What should be noticeable in the above sampling of currently- popular alienation explanations is that "alienation," besides being a very Americanized concept, at this point in history lies quite clearly within the discipline of social psychology, its choice of problems, its method, its terminology. The critical examination that will be directed at the alienation explanation will then be to sorne extent an examination of the social-psy- chological method of explaining social problems. Firstly, it is rare to find an alienation explanation that is not based on a broad philosophical position which separates the existence with which the critic is confronted from sorne notion of essence and, moreover, holds that the person's exist- ence do es not fuUy express that person's essence. Very simply put, the people being characterized as "alienated" are not what they might or should be; it is not "human," according to the cri tic, to be estranged, dehumanized, etc. In this case, "human" can be taken to mean what people are basically or essentially, as apart from their day-to-day existence. The most philosophically-fundamental criticism of any such account is to question the underlying assumption of the Idealist, or (as l prefer to caU it) the Subjectivist position which posits essence prior to existence, the Ideal as higher than the Real, or Ideology before the world. The debate over whether essence precedes existence, has raged for centuries in the history of philosophy, and each si de has produced notable champions. For the purpose of this study, it suffices to point out that a subjectivist explanation for the school's problems can be simply dismissed as a creation of the critic's perception as ordered by a peculiar ideological framework. That is, it can be argued that the putative objective cause of the problem is not at aIl in the schools, but in the critic's mind and its conception of True Humanity. Or, such a subjectivist explana-
Alienation in Education
which the critic chooses to perceive as essentially a social- psychological phenomenon, is explained by paraphrasing it in another bit of social-psychological jargon. We are told, in other words, that the students suffer from lassitude, passivity, lack of ambition because they are aIienated, Le., because they suffer estrangement, dehumanization either as an individual or a social-psychological state. The value of any socio-psychological explanation can be questioned in this manner. What does it teach us? When alienation is perceived in terms of feelings, attitudes, or states of consciousness what the theorist is at- tempting to do is explain a social situation in terms that apply to individual members of that grouping. That is, the explanation runs afoul of exactly the same ob- stacles to explaining society shared by any disciplines that start with the individual as their primary data. Once they have explained society in terms of its individual members, and once they have fully described these members in their in- dividuality, then it is impossible to describe society except by superimposing a completely new set of categories or "truths" on the description of the individual. Or, how does one under- stand a social psychological state of consciousness, mentality,
etc., except as a generalized individual state 1"1 Positing at-
titudes, feelings, temperaments, and other such states as attributes of a grouping are at best highly suspicious con-
structions and bring us not much closer to understanding.
the factor approach to alienation
It does not require intellectual sophistication to see that even if we concede that it is possible to understand an undesirable state of consciousness in the terms of a social-psychological model, that the questions still remain, "Why that psychological
state?" and "How are we to understand it?" To revert to
another set of psychological jargonisms would certainly not help at this point. And, if we cannot answer such a question, we have no basis upon which to make intelligent recommenda- tions for change. In educational theory, one of the most common strategies employed to explain the existence of social-psychological phenomena such as alienation, is simply to refer to other forces or things in the school situation. In the form of the natural scientists and their paradigms, a causal relationship is seen between the aspects or "factors" in the total school
Winston Gereluk
reality and this enables the production of statements such as "Alienation is caused by the authority-structure of the school (implicit in such relationships as teacher-student, principal- teacher, etc.)." Or, it is argued that the authoritarian examina- tion causes a pre-set curriculum which presupposes an au- thority-centered classroom, and that is what causes the "alienated" student, the one who "sees the meaning of his labor outside of himself." But, there can be no doubt that the relationship is at least reciprocal, that the resentful, passive student justifies the authoritarian teacher and the strictly supervised school. Just ask any teacher. Educational theorists have grown mad (or at least highly- published) by first isolating a whole range of aspects or "factors" of schooling, and then trying to relate them in a "chicken-or-egg" speculative game that could, if we were to take into account aIl aspects of the school, stun a computer. However, as far back as 1897, George Plekhanov recognized the basic fault in a "factor" analysis. The "factors" are subject to reciprocal action. Each influences the rest, and is in turn influenced by the rest. The result is such an intricate web of reciprocal influences of direct actions and reflected reactions that whoever sets out to elucidate the course of social developments begins to feel his head swim and experiences an un- conquerable necessity to find at least sorne sort of clue out of the labyrinth. Since bitter experience has taught him that the view of reciprocal action leads only to dizziness, he begins to seek for another view; he tries to simplify his task. 12 Writers have made themselves well-published and prestigious by successfully isolating a "clue" - a factor that is basic to the rest and in terms of which the rest may be explained. Grades and failing are basic to the bad effects schooling has on children, says John Holt'·; the "slave" relationship of students to schoolmasters is what Jerry Farber has isolated'4; McLuhan pontificates on the central effect of the imposition of the media"; and Ivan Illich outdoes them all by outlining carefully the manner in which schooling is the "key" to every- thing else in our society.'· Basic to^ the^ futility^ (if^ not^ the^ absurdity)^ of^ the^ above explanations is the notion that factors or aspects can be taken out of their context and understood as self-contained, abstract entities. And, the analyst is sustained in this practice in the following manner: after having isolated a number of abstrac- tions, he puts them back together and discovers that they fit Uke a jig-saw-the surprise and satisfaction attending this discovery is enough to assure everyone that the theorist is
Winston Gereluk
is the sum-total of human experience at one point in history. So, within the context of these two laws, it is possible to re- interpret the "aIienation explanation," to see what sense can be made of the state of consciousness-the lassitude, passivity, resentment, apathy, and rebelliousness-the perception of which causes us concern. Firstly, one must understand the disaffected student in terms of the relations into which he enters. Relationships, in their simplest form, can be seen as implying a unity of oppo- sites. First of aIl, the student's consciousness, his conception of his being, is mediated by the world "external" to his con- sciousness. At the simplest level of self-definition, the student sees himself as not-wall, not-teacher, not-book; he do es not define himself in a vacuum. His surroundings or, more exactly, the manner in which he experiences (acts) in those surround- ings define him, and at the same time form his conception of who he is. Secondly, it is crucial in our understanding of social prob- lems to recognize the dialectic unity of opposites that is set up when a person relates to another person. In the course of relating, this person defines himself according to the other, but the other is at the same time defining himself according to the first. It turns out that each can only understand him- self in terms of the other's understanding of him; but the other's understanding is a function of the first's understand- ing. Barring a past, a life-and-death struggle occurs in every relationship, as for each, his self-definition is at stake. In terms of this, R. D. Laing's agonizing becomes intelligible:
Interpersonal life is conducted in a nexus of persons, in which each person is guessing, assuming, inferring, believing, trusting or suspecting, generally being happy or tormented by his fantasy of other's experience, motives and intentions. And, one has fantasies not only about what the other, himself experiences and intends, but also about his fantasies about one's own experiences and intentions, and about his fantasies about one's fantasies about his fantasies about one's experiences, etc. 18
Characteristic of R. D. Laing, the above emphasizes con- sciousness; the^ process^ of^ self-definition in^ terms^ of^ the^ rela- tionships that one lives through is total, the person (and his problems) is defined. Aiso Laing looks at the problem from the point of view of a dyadic experience. How many times is the mind-boggling multiplied in the case of the triad, or in the classroom of twenty-six students? Or, in the school of two thousand? Only academics have the time and ambition to
Alienation in Education
attempt to conceptualize that. The important point to be made here is that a state of consciousness can not be properly un- derstood in the terms of an explanation that sees it as a property of the students themselves (whatever that can mean). It can only be understood in terms of the relations into which the student is placed (enters). However, our understanding that these relations are the life and mentality of the school student is incomplete if we view these relations as virginal. In other words, the students (and the problem) are to be understood as an ensemble of relations with a history. The student who is defined during his school days cornes to that point in his life with a past that began at birth (notwithstanding certain theological wrangles). And, the same understanding applies to the school; it is what it is as a result of being not only a determinate part of society, but also as a result of its own pro cess of development. Any prob- lem, within it, then, must be understood not only in space, but in time. It is at this point that another fundamental of the Marxian method is required-the necessity of seeing society in terms of infra structural and superstructural relationships, for pur- poses of rendering the social object of enquiry manageable.
This method starts from the simplest fundamental relations we can find historically; in actual fact, that is economic relations.so
It is to this "key" that a lot of criticism has been attached. Marxism, it is held, is "economic determinism"; it sees econo- mics as causally prior to the rest of society. Or, it is also held, that dialectical materialism sees economic relations as the only ones that are important. Neither is the case; dialectical materialism recognizes the reality of relations in aU areas of human experience. In a society characterized by scarcity, however, economic relations are the simplest ones, and because there is only one society, these relations are implied in aIl other "areas." Henri Lefebvre explains:
The simple relations, moments, categories are involved historically and methodologïcally in the richer and more complex determinations, but they do not exhaust them. The given content is always a concrete totality .... Dialectical materialism is not economism. It analyzes rela- tions and then re-integrates them into the total movement. S
Our venture into the aery realm of superstructural relation- ships, and especially the complexity of relationships involved
Alienation in Education
wealth of man's objective creations that mediate his activity in his world (mediate his mediations). Into this category would fan creations such as technology, bureaucracy, capital profit, money, institutionalizations, as weIl as countless other social shibboleths. On one level of analysis, it is possible to see alienation in terms of second order mediations when they are isolated as hindrances to man's social activity. In this positivist and un- dialectical sense, it is possible to isolate very quickly the mean- ing of the student's alienation-his passivity, resentment, etc. -by pointing to the institutional pro cesses, rules, and config- urations of the school that bind the student's activity. According to the materialist dialectic, however, alienation would be seen more properly in the contradictions that occur at aIl levels of the schooling process between first and second order mediations. In fact, the two cannot be separated, except as the hopeless factors that Plekhanov discussed. The following example should serve to illustrate the nature of the contra- diction: In the Marxian analysis of. capitaIism, the classic contra- diction is the simple economic relationship that exists, and be- cornes clarified in the course of history, between use-value and exchange-value. The first order mediation can be seen as occurring when man engages in production in order to gain the satisfaction of his needs--defined, of course, at the historically-appropriate levaI. The meaning of his activity is ostensibly in the use-values that he is creating. The second- order Mediations, in fact, define the form that his production takes under capitalist arrangements. It is, from this point-of- view, the production of exchange-value, in which configura- tion the labor-power (or, the laborer himself) is seen as exchange-value also. When the person's activity (work) does not result in the satisfaction for which he is working, because of the dominant relations of work (economic relations), then his alienation from his product, activity, etc., emerges in reality. It appears superficially to be due to the second-order Mediations (the economic reifications) under which he labors, but in fact, the second order Mediations are the form of his activity, and can- not be separated. In a certain historical socio-economic form, satisfaction of needs takes the form of the satisfaction of the demands of the market. When it no longer does, when coinci- dence becomes contradiction, then alienation becomes evident, and revolution immanent. The historical development of pro-
Winston Gereluk
duction (man's first order mediation) demands the dissolution of relations that have turned from the form of development of production into its fetters.Si Applying this model to our problem, alienation in schools becomes a reality when, due to the social relations, the form imposed upon their activity by such things as the structures of the school and the structures of the economy, the purposes for which the children engage in schooling are not fulfilled but are negated. If one is so inclined, he can study this phenomenon from the point-of-view of what happens to the individual student who finds that the activity in which he indulges does not satisfy his purposes at the same timeas it "satisfies" the institutional requirements. Or, he could study it from the point-of-view of the society of which the school is a determinate part, and in terms of whose dominant rela- tions it is fully understood. In this case, the social produc- tion summed up as "schooling" can he seen as fettered by the social relations most closely implicated in its functioning. From the first perspective, the historically-appropriate needs that bring people to school are denied satisfaction by the demands of the school relations which are a part of the demands of the totality of social relations, which have turned from the form of the satisfaction of these needs into their negation. It is here that we can examine the manner in which the "learning" and "teaching" that students and teachers do is negated by such relations as give meaning and force to the schedule, curriculum, school quota, finance, examinations, etc. At this level, the wealth of liberal criticism, itself a mystifica- tion, takes hold and remains. We are less accustomed to enquire from the perspective of social needs (not separate from the above) and to see how alienation occurs when the social needs that motivated the institution of schooling are no longer being satisfied. A major "social need" is to "pass on the culture," the knowledge and skills vital to the perpetuation and development of the socio-economic form. The task of schooling, as it relates to this social need, would he of the order of the initiation of novices into dominant social forma, the rationalizing and en- hancement of these forms through research, etc. It can be seen how these would come into contradiction with the dominant social relations of the school when it is fulfilling other expectations of the market. For, the task then becomes the passing on of knowledge and skills needed
Winston Gereluk
relevance for the whole Canadian society, and certainly for the type of indoctrination meted out in the schools. The basic dichotomies operating in the Canadian political economy emerge, in time, as the principal dichotomies in the school. For instance, there are those who have as their in- terests the expansion of the schooling process, and then, there is the "public interest" which is at this point in history in the direction of fewer graduates and lower education costs. The "public" is, from this point-of-view, in favor of retaining the myth that sees schooling as coincidental with market expectations, e.g., having jobs available for aIl graduates and they must continually fight against the "private" in- terests which would continue developing the institution in such a way as to turn the coincidence into contradiction. The problem of alienation was never, then, properly de- fined only in terInS of the perceived apathy, resentment, or emotional state of the students at school. If it were, the proper stimulants à la Brave New World would be equal to the task of providing a solution; the type of psychological
upIifting to be obtained by the use of drugs, new media, and
the like, not at aIl alien to present practice in the schools, would suffice. But if the problem, of which the psychological state is a part, is raised to the level of contradictions basic to the political economy of Canada, then we should not be surprised if it is not answered by the liberalization of "drug rules," exciting media, or "groovy" group therapy sessions .... If the alienation of students can only be completely under- stood in terms of the conjuncture of historical circumstances at which they must try to produce a satisfactory life, then a much more decisive sort of therapy is required.
footnotes
- T. B. Bottomore (ed.), Karl Marx: Early Writings, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1965, p. 122. 2. Ibid" p. 124. 3. Ibid., p. 127. 4. Ibid., p. 129.
- Eric Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion, New York: Trident Press, 1962, p. 44.
- Paul Tillich, "The Person in a Technical Society" in Christian Faith and Social Action, J. A. Hutchinson (ed.), New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953, p. 150.
- Jules Henry, Culture Against Man, New York: Random House, 1963, p. 283.
- John Holt, How Children Faü, New York: Dell Publishing Company, Delta Books, 1964, p. 167.
Alienation in Education
- Abraham Maslow, Towards a Psychology of Being, Princeton, N.J.: Van N ostrand, 1962, p. 33.
- Paul Goodman, Compulsory MiB-education, New York: Random House, Vintage Books, 1956, p. 21.
- Recognizing that the state of dissatisfaction of the observer is inex- tricably wound up in the nature of his object, one in a sense is always left with this question. Perhaps, the matter of finding an "objective base" is, in the final analysis, a political ploy.
- G. Plekhanov, The MaterialiBt CO'Meption of HiBtory, New York: International Publishers, 1940, p. 16. 13. How Children FMl, op. cit.
- Jerry Farber, "Student As Nigger."
- Marshall McLuhan, "Classroom Without WaHs" in Selected Educa- tional Heresies, William O'Neill (ed.), Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1969, pp. 294-6.
- Ivan Illich, "Why We Must Abolish Schooling" in The New York Review of Books, Vol. XV, No. 10, pp. 28~3.
- See Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the E:~ternal World, Lon- don: George Allen & Unwin, 1926.
- See, Kuhn, Structure of Scientific RevolutiOfLB, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.
- R. D. Laing, Self and Others, 'London: Tavistock Publications, 1961, p.l54.
- H. Lefebvre, Dialectical MaterialiBm, Trans. by J. Sturrock London: Jonathan Cape, 1968, p. 85. 21. Ibid.
- R. D. Laing, "The Obvious" in Dialectics of Liberation, D. Cooper (ed.) Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1968, p. 15.
- Meszaros, Marx's Theory of Alienation, London: Merlin Press, 1970.
- Louis Feuer (ed.), Marx & Engels: Basic Writings, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1959, p. 44.
- Foreign equity capital is not only accepted, but actively courted with the understanding (unquestioned until recently) that it does create jobs. T>here have been reams of studies to disprove this amongst which the following would make basic reading: P. Sweezy "The Future of Capitalism" in Dialectics of Liberation, op. cit.; P. Baran and P. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital, New York: .Monthly Review Press, 1966; 1. Lumsden (ed.), Close the 49th Parallel, etc., Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1970; H. Magdoff, The Age of lm- perialism: The Economics of U.S. Foreign Policy, New York: Modern Reader Paperbacks, 1969; J. Laxer, The Eneruy Poker Ganne, Toronto: New Press, 1970; and K. Leavitt, The Süent Sur- render, Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1970.
