A Sense of Placelessness: Modernistic and Postmodernistic Alienation

Recently, I have been reading through a book on globalization, and an aspect of the author's analysis of cultural globalization stood out to me largely because it seemed very similar to modernistic alienation, a concept I often think about. Yet, it seems that since this is in the setting of a more globalized world, that the alienation is akin to postmodernism. Additionally, one can look at this aspect and draw out the common principles shared by both modernistic alienation and this supposed, postmodernistic alienation.

The contemporary experience of living and acting across cultural borders means both the loss of traditional meanings and the creation of new symbolic expressions. Reconstructed feelings of belonging coexist in uneasy tension with a sense of placelessness. [...] it appears that the old structures of modernity are slowly giving way to a new 'postmodern' framework characterized by a less stable sense of identity and knowledge.

Manfred Steger

According to what I've learned so far, modernistic alienation had its roots in the industrial revolution, which resulted in alienation largely in workers becoming more alienated towards what they produced and what they used to produce it due to the dehumanization by the mechanization process involved. Additionally, the traditional family structure was changed by an increased disconnect between a family's father due to a greater displacement by industrial jobs that kept him farther and longer from the home.

The proposed postmodern alienation seems tied to today's information society, where people are more alienated towards information in general. Examples of problems birthed from this can be seen in the struggles of knowing what is true without acquiescing to relativism, a greater simplification in appearances of daily life due as a response to a sense of information overload, the prominence of diversity dialog in television shows such as The Office. So, it seems that modernistic and postmodernistic alienation differs greatest in the aspect of information and material. Of course, this is not to say that postmodernism is against materialism, for that can be one of the ways to experience information as well as to conveniently simplify its presentation.

Considering the details of each kind of alienation, it seems that each have commonality in the sense of placelessness, that the author mentions. In modernistic alienation, this likely was produced out of having no way to distinguish one place to another due to the increase in material homogeneity of products. Placelessness for modernity could also be seen in how the individualistic / emotional tendencies, that in the workplace established a sense of place, were repressed in men due to the use of Scientific Management. For the postmodern, placelessness is produced by the challenge of distinguishing one informational / cultural sphere from another as being that which one chooses to identify with. Since identity in the Western mindset is tied to ideas, when one is faced with a multitude of seemingly endless right choices, one is unable to provide distinction by choosing one because they all seem largely valid. Hence, postmodern man can cognitively choose to agree with the cultures he experiences in travels (on foot or through the Internet), but cannot, on an emotional level, identify with any of them.

The Industrial Age of Government and Economic Systems

After watching a recent episode of South Park, in fact the latest one as of this date, I came to think about how it might be that a fear based on a distant, alienated understanding of some aspect of life, might come to be within the areas of economic and governmental systems. That is, how it might be that one can be frightened by an force of some kind because of a lack of understanding of that force. A good example would be say, people's natural phobia of aliens, if they came among us. As such, an force in which we have alienated understanding of, is frightening, and even more dangerous then is such a force that is malevolent. All these relations can be seen if one looks at the latest episode in how it comments on the recent economic meltdown, the nature of the United States' economic system being service-based, 9/11, and more details than I can think of.

Now, after considering how this alienation of understanding and subsequent real threat is tied to governmental and economic systems, I came to see that the Industrial Revolution not only applied to the sciences and production methodologies, but also to governmental and economic systems in America. The idea of modernistic alienation is an impression in the United States that existed after the Industrial Revolution took place. Typically in my exposure, this has been shown to have been applied to material goods and the sciences; the alienation is caused essentially by making the production of goods and progress in science dependent upon machines rather than actual humans. One cannot see as easily that which came from a human (production of goods) or can comprehend with the human senses (atomic sciences) that which is before them; it appears to be from machines.

The same impression of alienation exists in the United States' economic and governmental systems because the process of industrialization was applied also to them. For government, the leaders structured it such that it became highly reliant upon a system that allowed greater number of people to be governed using less actual people. A couple of illustrations that reveal how this was expressed is, first the increase in internal structures of organization in how government was handled (bureaucracy), second the increase in importance of citizens of following laws. These two expressions caused man to follow dutifully the intricacies of detailed organizational procedures and caused the populace to not be as governed by actual people, but by laws.

The industrialization of economic systems followed the same mentality of streamlining how a nation approached economics such that making profit, liking making products for the factory sector, was streamlined using highly mathematical systems. The need to keep progressing (a value strengthened greatly by the Industrial Revolution) is now so intrinsic within the United States' view of economics that it isn't acceptable to have a level market; but rather one that is always increasing. And so, of course, it is a crisis that a market would turn in an opposite direction, as it is now.

An important extension to the industrialization of economic systems that one should note, is that it led to the creation of the service economy we now have. This is due to the fact that people were already comfortable with an alienating system; a system that becomes more reliant upon people far away is less daunting. Of course, that sneaky alienating force that is built within such a service will make some people frightened, and rightly so, for we are reliant upon others who could easily destroy our way of life because we are so strongly tied to them; a modern Republican-esque belief. This extended idea could really be gone into more fully in a separate posting all together.

The Kingdom of God and History

Oftentimes, I am compelled to consider the future path of civilization. From my thoughts about "essentialism," I began to consider the future projections for a society that follows such a way of thinking. Most conclusions that I've been reading about and thinking about, lead to a societal decay on a large scale to some degree or measure. When I considered what this decay could look like, I began to see many ideas come together to form a couple of potential outcomes. By many ideas coming together, I mean that a new idea was entering my thoughts that largely depended on other ideas pre-existing, which seems seems like a good cognitive method to begin to see relations between ideas that may actually exist, but not recognized before.

Back to the point. The importance of coming up with these two resulting outcomes that entered my mind was that they hinged on whether a certain belief in my mind was one way or another. And this is important because one's stance on this belief is likely due to what time of history one is ascribing the stance in. Particularly, one stance is from the early 20th century, and one stance is much more recent.

The generated outcomes of "essentialism" and all the issues within that historical progression were the following. The first is that Western society will undergo a cycle of first falling apart, then rebirth where the new society will take what truths the last society discovered, but will throw away much of the culture and false truths that existed. This occurs in a cycle and each society as it rebirths, builds upon societies prior; thereby increasing societal stability with each passing age. The second outcome that came to my mind was that Western culture will be accepted throughout the Earth as a unifying culture for all mankind. However, when this society falls apart, there somehow isn't as much availability for rebirth. It is similar to the Tower of Babel event, where all of mankind was divided. However, this time, this may not be the outcome, it could something else.

Both of these ideas hinged in my mind on some of my Christian beliefs. This makes all good sense, because I am a Christian and my mind should hinge on my beliefs. The particular belief it hinged on was what my view was on the future of the "Kingdom of God," which is discussed often in the Bible. One popular viewpoint is that the Kingdom of God will come in a dramatic, earth-shattering (so to speak) event. Followers of this idea could commonly be referred to as believers in the "New Earth, New Kingdom" dynamic. A second popular viewpoint is that the Kingdom of God will come when society on Earth progresses to that point, at which Jesus will come back to Earth and rightly become King. Followers of this idea could commonly be referred to as believers in a "Progressive Kingdom." Believers in the "New Earth, New Kingdom" dynamic would likely interpret the future of Western society in a fashion that will bring the dramatic event that changes the world quickly. Believers in the "Progressive Kingdom" dynamic would believe that Western society will indeed fall apart, but that a new society that is better than all the last will be built upon the ashes.

The historical importance of these two views, is that the "New Earth, New Kingdom" concept has existed at least since the early 20th century. Popular allusions to this idea can be seen in some of the art of the day, such as in the film of Metropolis. The "Progressive Kingdom" concept is an idea of at least the past ten years. Noticing this difference that is based largely on which belief one holds that is from which era is important as it signifies more as to who one is compared to who one thinks one is, and that is the relevance for it to me. As far as to why the "Progressive Kingdom" idea has been gaining a lot steam lately, that is for another posting.

Difficulties in Objectivity

So, the other night, I had a hankering for looking further into a series of related topics that I tend to find interesting: globalization, and whether the United States' use of labor from other countries could be modern-day slavery (globalization of labor). This topic seems of paramount importance, simply because the majority of items that the majority of the citizens from the U.S. buy, are from other countries. The scale on which this is done today is likely greater than in any other time in history due to the United States having cheap enough technology and oil to ship imports at low cost. This novelty in history is important, for it bodes the potential to reshape the paradigm of international economics as the United States moves from being an industrial nation, to one that relies on other nations to provide services (a service-based economy). This does not mean that what is occurring is bad, but as in all things novel, care should be taken to watch out for misuse, and potential problems.

However good my intentions were, they did not prevail in bringing a comfortable new level of understanding to the topics. This inability to produce a new level of understanding is very important; for I came to realize two things. The first is of the need at times, to re-adjust one's source of authority; one's source of discernment about the happenings in the world. The second is of modernistic alienation.

When researching online, I generally am able to make new ground in topics because I believe I know how to discern good material from bad material (that which has a good foundation in the pursuit of objectivity; a method I attempt to employ often). This method of research often involves taking what someone is arguing, and to detach the person from the argument they are making, which then results in having an idea that can be taken and applied to more situations other than that which it was originally presented in; the person's original statements of argument. If someone has not presented their material in a objective, academic style, then I am not likely to even consider their idea.

That's enough of my method of research. What I learned from my experience in looking into globalization, is that I lacked greater understanding of globalization to such a degree that I couldn't read through content online and find myself able to understand the depths of what the people were saying. Based on my experience, it takes a very long time to develop an understanding if a layman attempts to read high-level material. One can realize this in practice: take a topic one is not an expert in, say politics. Even in reading a common newspaper article, if one does not have a decent basis of understanding, one will not be able to conclude the importance of why something is written. For example, if I don't understand the history of two countries, then news of them beginning a new trade agreement will not seem important to me because I lack the knowledge to know why it is important. These deeper threads can only be discerned the more one is aware of a topic.

And so, my traditional pursuit of facts can not proceed; I can't thresh out what I want because I don't have a basis to work from to gain the facts that I want. Perhaps that seems impatient, and perhaps it is, but what this has caused, is to realize that in order to, by my practical measures, to come to knowledge, I must change my source authority in my research. I can't seek to go through further mountains of information; it is arguably much more worth it to find a faster way. The change in authority that I found myself moving towards, was that of an existing expert that was willing to provide ample information so that a layman can come to understand the topic well.

Of course, any objective-style-loving person will observe that such a turn to another source of authority allows one to be impregnated with volatile opinion. This is true in many ways; one cannot easily separate the wheat from the weeds until one can see the weeds for what they are. However, such is the necessity of human life. What one can do is two things: observe how much the author submits to writing in an objective style, and then through that assume that what minor opinion exists, will not become too great a future inhibition to seeing the truth behind the opinion. Second, trust standards of authority; there really is no choice here if knowledge is to be gained in a timely manner. I have found myself leaning towards finding an author of a detailed, simplistic, and likely somewhat opinionated work. Essentially, this means a necessity in the greater trust of fellow humans; not something easy for an objectivist pursuit. Yet, I find myself turning this way more and more often. Whether this is is for good, or due to the winds of the culture, it is hard to say.

The second realization that I came to in attempting to research about globalization and labor, was the inherent feeling of an unnaturally high obstacle in trying to understand the nature of the problem. This feeling can be attributed to the concept of modernistic alienation, and it applies here well. The nature of an outsourcing market as the U.S. is having, produces alienation because more and more, the items being constructed are more and more often not coming from local sources, but far away countries. Understanding the validity of this economic system is far more hairy than talking directly to the salesman. One has no easy way to speak to someone who has complete understanding of that which was involved in the trade that resulted in bringing something as simple as a plastic doll over from China. The number of hands involved in its construction and the number of business agreements made to bring such a simple item across the sea is enumerable in appearance, nearly mind-boggling. And so, completely understanding the topic is woefully impossible in today's age of the U.S. being a consumer of global sources.

This causes great inhibition to even beginning to look into the topic; no doubt it stops dead multitudes more simply by its appearance. This causes me to bring to question a few ways to resolve this issue of alienation: begin relying upon something one hasn't before (assume something / rely upon something new as a truth) so that understanding can be grasped, spend much greater time learning the intricacies of the process so that complete understanding might be gained, conclude that the system is bad by its very nature. These three responses likely don't encompass everything, but they seem the most realistic to me.

Interestingly, but perhaps as a side-note for future topics, is that in college, many people seemed to claim apathy towards politics for how woefully complex and alienating the system was. Whether this really means that the system is too complex or that these were immature responses to problems that require time and discipline to solve, is another topic, but important to relate, for its relevancy.

Anyways, the complexities of pursuing a topic that is new as well as massively imposing by the nature of its function, is intriguing to me, and provides important insight into the nature of understanding things of novelty and complex nature.

Cross-Country Gen-Xers

Something I was thinking about recently, that occasionally pops into my mind, is why it is that Gen-Xers seem similar, even across country lines. Maybe this is too hasty, but the examples I have seen, show that there are common traits between American Gen-Xers and people from the same age group that live in either England or Australia. It may be simpler than I thought, since the three countries share a lot of culture, but also because during the 80's (part of the developmental time of Gen-Xers), a sense of world-wide culture was beginning to take off with the advent of more technology being integrated into people's lives.

That is not to say that the Internet was widely used then, it certainly was not, since it didn't really exist for civilian use, but they didn't call Gen-X the MTV generation without a reason.