Although it is often condemned as an imprecise concept, alienation continues to flourish as critique in contemporary philosophy, theology, and psychology, as well as in sociology. Historically originating in Roman law, where it referred to the transfer of land ownership, alienation has since been applied extensively to analyses of labor relations, politics, and culture. In the 19th century, Marx showed that workers’ alienation, their dehumanization and estrangement, was a consequence of the structure of exploitation in capitalist industry. The concern was echoed in Weber’s metaphor of the >iron cage< as an outcome of rationalized structures, as well as in Durkheim’s conceptualization of anomie as a variant of alienation causing socially induced psychological states. Today, while research in the structural tradition does not assume that people necessarily are aware of their condition, researchers who assume that alienation is a conscious experience have invented scales to measure its intensity. Continuing both the structural and the psychosocial traditions, researchers now study alienation in relation to uses of digital technologies and new forms of exploitation in work, as well as in politics and popular culture. Alienation is also studied in families, especially in investigations of parenthood.
Throughout history, people have accepted ideologies that >legitimate< certain hierarchical social arrangements and subsequently valorize the >desirability< of consent to the system and its leadership cadres. While rules, norms and regulations, as well as leadership, are essential for social life in any complex society, all too often certain political economic systems, their dominant values and leadership cadres tend to move beyond maintaining social order if not harmony, and instead become systems of domination, subjugation and exploitation of subalterns. For the most part people have >willingly consented< to class and ideological domination. But why do people consent to systems/leaders that act contrary to their self-interests whether economic, political or personal (self-direction/realization)? This has often been understood as >false consciousness<, a term first used by Engels and Lenin. But this concept raises a number of questions about culture, mediation, desire, agency and the limited capacity of people to understand social reality without a strong party. For Gramsci, hegemony, the ideological control of culture, fostered >willing assent< rather than simply compliance to power. His insights are especially valuable given how millions of Americans vehemently support economic policies that benefit only the elites, while their own economic situations become more precarious. They oppose unionization, universal healthcare and deny global warming .We must ask why so many people >willingly assent< to policies that benefit only the wealthy and thus act contrary to their own economic political self-interest and actively engage in denial of the consequences of their actions.