UUnniivveerrssiittyy ooff MMaassssaacchhuusseettttss AAmmhheerrsstt SScchhoollaarrWWoorrkkss@@UUMMaassss AAmmhheerrsstt Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 1977 AAlliieennaattiioonn:: ffrroomm ccrriittiiqquuee ttoo ccoonnffoorrmmiittyy.. Howard. Cohen University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses Cohen, Howard., "Alienation: from critique to conformity." (1977). Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014. 1405. Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/theses/1405 This thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014 by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. MM ALIENATION: FROM CRITIQUE TO CONFORMITY A Thesis Presented By s HOWARD COHEN Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE February 19 7 7 Psychology Department 11 Alienation: From Critique to Conformity A Thesis Presented By Howard Cohen Approved as to style and content by: Dr. Howard Gad in, Chairman of Committee 1 Dr. Bonnie H. Strictland Department Cha rpcrson i Psychology Department iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER II. HEGEL 13 CHAFrER III. KARL MARX 19 CHAPTER IV. EMILE DURKHETM 78 CHAPTER V. TWENTIETH CENTURY THEORISTS: ROBERT K. J^ERTON AMD... MELVIN SEEMAN 143 CHAPTER VI. CONCLUSION 193 - iv Even for a thesis this paper was written under rather unusual circumstances. The intellectual and moral support of my committee members, as such, was especially important. I owe a special debt to Professor Howard Gadlin. Without his backing and advocacy, this papc would not have been written. Dr. Gadlin' s scholarship, teaching, and friendship have all contributed to the strengths of this particular study and analysis. As one of the pilliars of Reason within the psy- chology department, his work in the critique of the dominant pro- cedures and paradigms of psychology has provided the opportunity for many to understand the ideological foundations of today's psychology. His criticisms have helped clarify my arguments and his patience has immusurably contributed to the completion of this dissertation. Secondly, would like to thank Professor Marcia Westkott. Dr. West- I kott's scholarship and knowledge of social theory especially contri- buted to the argument of this thesis. Her support and encouragement was particularly important for one who was encountering several of the sociological theorists for the first time. Her scholarship and teaching exemplify the fact that an amalgamation of computer readout and esoteric statistics does not even begin to replace social theory In her absence from this campus she is sorely missed by those in- dividuals who would rather think than punch computer cards. Finally would like to thank Professor Dalton Jones. I sincerely appreci I iate the fact that Dr. Jones was willing to experiment with a thesis of a different format. As a participant in his seminar, admire I his scholarship, teaching, and open-minded self-reflection. Finally, each of these teachers demonstrate that intelligence and critical thinking are quite compatible with affability, understand- ing, and jocularity. vi " Division of labor and exchange are the two phenomena which lead the political economist to boast of the social charac- ter of his science, while in the same breath he gives expres- sion to the contradiction in his science - the establishment of society through unsocial, particular interests." Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts m , p. 163. (emphasis the ori- ginal) "A psychology for which this the part of history most contem- , porary and accessible to sense, remains a closed book, cannot become a geniune, comprehensive and real science. What indeed are we to think of a science which airily abstracts from this large part of human labor and which fails to feel its own in- completeness, while such a wealth of human endeavor, unfolded before it, means nothing more to it than, perhaps, what can be expressed in one word - "need ," "vulgar need"?" Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts , p. 142. (emphasis in the ori- ginal) "It is noteworthy that modern doctrines of social change are initiated by those who have a tendency to anomy. Let us take for example the case of Karl Marx. He was from his early youth subjected to some of the conditions that breed anomy." Robert Maclver, The Ram- parts We Guard (N'ew York: MacMillian, 1950) p. 87. 0 CHAPTER I Introduction All social theory, as expressed in interpretation and categorization of phenomena, has both a social and political history. An awareness of the historical development of theory is necessary for it provides the only firm basis for evaluating whether scholarship has "progressed," and if so, in what directions and how much. Any conceptualization . which is ignorant of its founders not only does not know how far it is travelled nor in what direction, but is apt to suffer from theoretical redundancy, false starts, archaic doctrines, and fruitless errors. However, the view of the past is, in part, a function of where the present is, and recently with the transformation of social theory into so- cial science, the historical study of preceeding systems of thought has been thoroughly neglected. With the internali- zation of the criteria and standards of the natural sci- ences, all systems of thought which predate the advent of the scientific method came to be regarded as speculative and had, if anything at all, only a curiosity value. Social theory, having now been superceded by the scientific meth- od, was relegated to the realm of social philosophy and un- scientific speculation. As Gouldner has observed, current American social theory has fostered the bizzare assumption that books and ideas more than twenty years old are beyond 2 scientific salvation. 1 Once established on scientific, ob- jective foundations, the social sciences have tended in- creasingly to cut themselves loose from history in general. The twentieth century has witnessed the increasing consoli- dation and augmentation of the scientific spirit as the do- minant mode of modern consciousness in both its theoretical and popular or commonsense forms. The dominance of this world view becomes apparent in the revival of the concept of alienation by twentieth cent- ury social theorists in both psychology and sociology. Al- though alienation has been the catchword of the post-war era in the academy as well as in mass culture, the term has ex- hibited such an extraordinary flexibility and vagueness of meaning that "it has been suggested that alienation has both supplanted and supplemented sin as generic concept for de- 2 picting a sense of defective aspects of human existence." Theologians, philosophers, psychoanalysts, and a variety of social scientists have discovered manifestations of aliena- tion in an astonishing variety of aspects of Western life, ranging from the assembly line to the therapist's couch and including along the way such topics as delinquency among the young, apathy among the old, status aspirations among the poor, race relations, social change, urbanization, and suicide. "At the present time," Nisbet has acknowledged, "in all the social sciences, the various synonyms of alienation have a foremost place in studies of human life