Self, Society, Alienation: From Marx to Identity Politics

Abstract

This chapter argues that we have seen an erosion of the mediation between the individual and society, resulting in increasingly estranged elements of the individual and the social. It outlines how contemporary identity politics includes notions of the individual that are hostile to the social and forms of the social that are hostile to the individual. Finally, it shows how the estrangement of people from their social existence is now being sought as a campaign and a policy, with the celebration of non-attachment between people. There has also been a growth of the autonomous mediator between people, such that people increasingly relate through third parties such as bureaucracy, therapists, or social media, rather than directly and face to face.