Alienation

Alienation and Leadership

Alienation became important for social analysis after Karl Marx (1818–1883) used the concept to describe the consequences of capitalism in its early industrial phase. He felt that when workers sold their labor to produce commodities for markets, they became estranged from the product of that labor; they themselves became commodities, dehumanized, powerless, lacking meaning in their lives, and bereft of a sense of community with others. A century later, alienation had entered the political lexicon to describe the state of mind of people who may be either indifferent to politics or, conversely, likely to embrace radical politics. Studies of support for Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) show that his appeal was to the more alienated segments of German society, who tended to be the most fatalistic and, prior to the rise of Hitler, least likely to become politically involved. The radical psychoanalyst Frantz Fanon (1925–1961) called the victims of colonization the wretched of the earth; he noted that their alienation, experienced as destructive self-hatred, limited political mobilization. It is also true, however, that one expression of the politics of hopelessness is terrorism, a weapon of the weak. It appears that one consequence of hopelessness is willingness to die for a cause.

The relationship between leadership and alienation raises several questions, especially in the context of religiously inspired late-twentieth-century and early-twenty-first-century terrorism. The link between alienation and terrorism requires us to take [Page 21]more cognizance of the importance of alienation in fostering certain kinds of leaders and to pay attention to the trajectories those leaders follow and the goals they set. Alienated, but dynamic, charismatic leaders can attract equally alienated followers; the result may be benevolent societal transformations or malevolent fascisms.

The politics of alienation has typically taken a religious form, as is evident from a quick survey of the history of Christianity. In the faith's nascent years, the followers of Christ thought of themselves as Jews listening to another in a long line of prophets. The conditions of Roman conquest made the new prophet's appeal particularly cogent. Christianity in its earliest forms preached a gospel of charity, forgiveness, and salvation. Those with a higher morality than the conquerors would have better lives in the next world. Proselytizers such as Saul of Tarsus, known as St. Paul (d. 65 CE), traveling along trade routes, began to spread Christ's message of salvation throughout the Roman empire. In almost every city, alienated, marginal artisan classes came together to form communities that embraced those teachings, and Christian sects began to flourish throughout the empire. When Emperor Constantine (after 280–337) embraced Christianity, it began its transformation from a religion of the alienated to a religion of the rich and the powerful; it became so powerful that many of the Roman army's foreign mercenaries embraced it—only to overthrow Rome itself later.

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