this separation from God by sacrifices and rituals
designed to restore the proper, loving relationship
between God and humanity. For Christians, the sin of
humanity demands a punishment, which Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, provides through his death by cruci-
fixion on the cross. Through faith in that death and
restoration to life through the Resurrection of Christ,
the believer receives forgiveness from God and restora-
tion of a right relationship with the Lord. Through
realization of the love of God through Christ and the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers, the alien-
ation between God and humans is eliminated, and
people can have the joy of heaven even on earth. More
recent sociological concepts of alienation are not that
optimistic or spiritual.
Roman law, and later, European and English law,
viewed alienation in terms of the holding or selling
(“separating”) of property or persons. The Latin term
alienaremeans, “to remove or take away.” So, to sepa-
rate legally a person’s possessions or rights to property
(or liberty, in the case of slaves) becomes a kind of
alienation, and because some kinds of property or
rights could not be taken away, they came to be known
as inalienable, as in Thomas JEFFERSON’s phrase in the
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCEof “inalienable rights” to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Having other
legal rights or possessions taken away has been
described as being alienated, such as the term in civil
law alienation of affection when, for example, one
woman sues another woman for stealing her husband.
Philosophy and sociology in the 19th and 20th cen-
turies use alienation more in economic, social, and psy-
chological ways. For the German philosopher HEGEL,
humanity goes through continual separations in his-
tory, much as a child does from parents and schools.
Karl MARX, the father of communism, saw alienation
primarily in social and economic terms. People in
industrial society are alienated in four ways. Because
Marxism sees humanity as an economic producer, our
alienation in CAPITALISTsociety is estrangement from
(1) the product of our work because our labor is not
performed freely and creatively so that we do not rec-
ognize or understand it; (2) the human nature, which
is meant to produce freely but is in bondage to forced
work; (3) nature itself, which humanity is supposed to
subdue and control but which enslaves humans; and
(4) other humans because capitalism forces individuals
to compete and fight with each other while they are
supposed to cooperate in fulfilling everyone’s needs and
control nature and society. COMMUNISTsociety is sup-
posed to overcome all of these forms of alienation, pro-
ducing happy, creative, and fulfilled people. The histor-
ical experience of communist countries did not confirm
this theory, but it continued in much of sociological
and CRITICALideas.
In the 20th century, EXISTENTIAL philosophy ex-
tended the concept of alienation to the human condi-
tion, regardless of historical or social situation. By
nature, humans are lonely and incomplete, separated
and estranged. This existentialist view sees no hope in
God, faith, psychology, economics, or politics. It rec-
ommends the acceptance of a depressing aloneness, an
inevitable emptiness in human life. It claims that any
belief to the contrary (hope in God, community, or eco-
nomics) is unrealistic and “bad faith.” Jean-Paul
SARTRE’s books Roads to Freedom,Albert CAMUS’s The
Stranger,and Colin Wilson’s The Outsiderall reflect this
pessimistic, hopelessness of existentialism that claims
to be “courageous” rather than foolishness or self-pity.Further Readings
Feuer, L. What Is Alienation? The Career of a Concept.Spring
1962.
Fromm, E. The Sane Society.New York: Fawcett, New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1955.
Lichtheim, G. “Alienation.” In International Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences, vol. I. David L. Sills, ed.. New York: Mac-
millan, 1968, 264–68.
Lukes, Steven. “Alienation and anomie.” In Philosophy, Politics
and Society,3rd ser., P. Laslett and W. G. Runciman, eds.
New York: Barnes & Noble, 1967.
Marx, K. “Estranged labour.” In The Economic and Philosophic
Manuscripts of 1844.New York: International Publishers,
1964.
Ollman, B. Alienation: Marx’s Conception of Man in Capitalist
Society.New York: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Schacht, R. Alienation,1st ed. London: Allen & Unwin, 1970.
Schwalbe, Michael L. The Psychosocial Consequences of Natural
and Alienated Labor.New York: State University of New
York Press, 1986.
Weisskopf, Walter A. Alienation and Economics.New York: Dut-
ton, 1971.
Wright, James D. The Dissent of the Governed: Alienation and
Democracy in America.San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press,
1976.Althusser, Louis (1918–1990) French philoso-
pher and political theorist
Born in Birmandreïs, Algeria, Althusser later served in
the French military during World War II and spent
five years in a German prisoner-of-war camp. Follow-
ing the war, Althusser studied philosophy at the presti-
gious École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where heAlthusser, Louis 7