For more information
Call 1-800-351-0222
Call 1-800-351-0222
Isolation and Estrangement in Modern Society
Term Paper ID:36075
Get This Paper Free! or
Essay Subject:
This paper discusses the isolation and estrangement of modern man in society in terms ...... More...
6 Pages / 1350 Words
6 sources, 7 Citations,
MLA Format
$24.00
More Papers on This Topic
Paper Abstract:
This paper discusses the isolation and estrangement of modern man in society in terms of philosophy and architecture, employing the concepts of architect Rem Koolhaas, the sixties architectural group Archigram, deep ecologist Arne Naess, author John Berger, and phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
Paper Introduction:
Isolation and Estrangement in Modern Society Modern society is in many ways an adverse environment for people tolive in Myriad factors assaulting the integration of man into societyhave resulted in isolation and estrangement leaving man lonely-an islandunto himself The globalization of the economy while it should bringpeople around the world closer together has focused attention andresources on the global picture while leaving individuals disenfranchised Cities destroyed by natural disasters termed wounded cities by JaneSchneider and Ida Susser in their book Wounded Cities
Text of the Paper:
The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper.
Although things cannot provide companionship, love,or the sense of connectedness that man craves, he pursues them with a zealthat indicates that he believes they can. "Back to the Future: The 196 s Architectural Collective Archigram Had a Vision of Transforming Britain's Drab Postwar Landscape into a Technological Wonderland, but It Never Actually Built Anything. John Berger in Ways of Seeing argues that the invisible wall betweenthe Bad Half and the Good Half is publicity. Thanks to Retro-Chic, Its Ideas Are Now Enjoying a Revival." New Statesman, 133.4683, April 12, 2 4.Madison, Gary Brent. Ron Herron was certainly not thinking of whatmakes people happy when developing the Walking City; he was creating aphenomenon, not-one must hope-a way of life. The isolated man tends to become disconnectedfrom God and man. In the Generic City, he canbelong anywhere, because everywhere is generic, but he has no sense ofbelonging. Merleau-Ponty sees perception as everything, a view that in itself is estranging,as it disregards import and relationship to focus on perception.Recognizing that someone has put a hand on one's shoulder is a perceptionthat does nothing to remedy isolation; understanding that the touch conveysacceptance or comfort is the whole point. Architect and urbanist Rem Koolhaas describes commoditizedcities in terms of the proportion of space they devote to shopping: "Shopping is surreptitiously becoming the way in which urban substance is generated" (quoted in Lubow 2 : 42). Life becomes too complicated, yet too easy. No wonder it appeals to us so much today"(Gibson 38). The Generic Cityis, as the name implies, a faceless city with no distinguishingcharacteristics to make it unique. Somehow wrongly sensing that acquiring enough gadgets willfill the void left by love, modern man has elevated shopping into areligion. New York: Berg, 2 3.The Holy Bible, King James Version. Neither city offers the estranged man aplace to connect, to belong. The U.S. Cities destroyed by natural disasters, termed "wounded cities" by JaneSchneider and Ida Susser in their book Wounded Cities: Destruction andReconstruction in a Globalized World, essentially leave people homeless andstranded, separated from friends and family, without a job or resources,without their belongings, and vulnerable to a hostile and uncaring-even insome cases, predatory-universe (1). This is tantamount tofinding a man naked and bleeding to death and giving him clothes but notourniquet. This disconnection is analogous to the girdling of atree, in which its access to life-giving sap is severed and it weakens,eventually to die. Both leave him disenfranchised, isolated, andbelonging to no one-"itinerant" and rootless (Sanders 1 8). The globalization of the economy, while it should bringpeople around the world closer together, has focused attention andresources on the global picture, while leaving individuals disenfranchised. "Archigram: Designs on the Future." Artforum International, 37.2, 1998.Schneider, Jane; Susser, Ida. The Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty: A Search for the Limits of Consciousness. Koolhaas's book, Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture,describes a wall that divided old London-which represents the world-intothe Good Half and the Bad Half. These two halves are analogous to heaven and hell, between which,according to Luke 16:22, "a great chasm has been fixed, in order that thosewho want to pass from this [place] to you may not be able, and no one maypass from there to us" so that hell-dwellers are kept from entering heaven,much like Koolhaas's wall keeps people in the Bad Half from entering theGood Half (The Holy Bible, King James Version). Furthermore, at the heart of society's malaise isa spiritual disconnection. Having lost their own home, to thesepeople there is no longer any place that is home; "home" was the life theyhad before, with family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. Estrangement at its heart is an expression of the synergy of variousfactors embedded in modern life, not just the direct result of isolation,wounded cities, and loss. In the Walking City, man can go anywhere hewants...but there is nothing there for him. Many of its cities, like cities across the world, have witnessed the penetration of the "shopping industry" into every category of building: churches, temples, museums, means of transportation, and schoolseven now into the hallowed ground of the World Trade Center disaster (see Hurley and Trimarco fc; Tucker fc) (Schneider & Susser 5). The estranged man feelsthat he is trapped in the Bad Half but wanting to go to the Good Half.This typifies a spiritual wilderness in which the world seems larger andemptier than ever, but the individual's world is confined to themeaningless, the loveless, and the lonely. What they haveafter leaving or being expelled from their city is mere existence, withoutany social integration. Isolation and Estrangement in Modern Society Modern society is in many ways an adverse environment for people tolive in. An adjunct to phenomenology isthe relativistic morality that suggests that "If it feels good, do it."Without moral boundaries or absolute principles, man is cast adrift in aworld where he must analyze everything he encounters in order to make adecision. Publicity, or more precisely,advertising, convinces people that buying things will make their livesbetter. The emptiness of life is not just the absence ofpeople and things that we love but the devaluing of relationship inpreference to things. leads a world list, he points out, with 31 square feet of real estate per person devoted to shopping. Myriad factors assaulting the integration of man into societyhave resulted in isolation and estrangement, leaving man lonely-an islandunto himself. Translating estrangement from the feelingsrealm into the physical realm takes man from estrangement to event, wherehis loneliness has become palpable, embodied in the rootless mechanicalcities that are equally as itinerant and soul-less as the estranged man.The Walking City is a clever concept, but it bespeaks a focus on utility tothe exclusion of humanity. The phenomenology of merely perceiving where one is does notsupply the warm feeling of "home." Estrangement is lonely. Another element bound up in the estrangement of modern man is thecomposite of principles identified by Arne Naess in his Deep EcologyMovement that have destroyed the fabric of modern life: "diversity,complexity, autonomy, decentralization, symbiosis, egalitarianism andclasslessness" (Palmer 166). The existential phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty argues that: Form belongs at one and the same time to the world (it is a structure) and to consciousness (it is a meaning); and thus its proper locus is neither in-itself nature nor pure internal self-consciousness, but rather perception which is the life of a subject engaged outside of himself in the world and who is at once active and passive. Man's isolation has led him to an estrangement that canonly be remedied by the restoration of all that he has lost-family,friends, job, home, and his connection to a loving God. Works CitedGibson, Grant. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1981.Palmer, Clare. Archigram's Walking City and Rem Koolhaas's GenericCity are architectural outworkings of the estrangement of modern man fromhis fellow man and from his environment. The inhabitants of the Bad Half want to goto the Good Half, but Bad-Half authorities built a wall around the GoodHalf to interrupt the migration of people to the already-overflowing GoodHalf. Then he discoversthat without moral boundaries, he has no idea what is truly right. Environmental Ethics and Process Thinking. Furthermore, providing bold, innovative housing options thatdo nothing to remedy estrangement is of dubious value in a society wherethe most urgent need is relief from estrangement. The Gestalt is precisely 'the joining of an idea and an existence which are indiscernible, the contingent arrangement by which materials begin to have meaning in our presences, intelligibility in the nascent state.' It is thus necessary to return to perception, to this beginning consciousness, and to attempt to discover exactly how matters stand with it in order to find out what is in fact the true relation between the subject and the world (Madison 15 ). The most nourishing andrestorative force in life-love-becomes commoditized in man's quest for thelatest gadget. "Archigram's bold, populist vision of the future was nevercorrupted by becoming a reality. All hehas is perception, and that gives him no definitive answers. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.Sanders, Joel. Advertising promises that we will be accepted by others if we buythe things that are being touted, yet all advertising delivers is rampantconsumerism. Destruction and Reconstruction in a Globalized World. In Merleau-Ponty's view, one's perception is reality, and thatperception is engaged with the person and the world around him. In the Walking City, a city isbuilt like a gigantic robotic dwelling that can move about at will asconditions make one location more desirable than another. It is difficult todecide what is right and what is wrong, because the landmarks are gone, yetit is easy to oversimplify everything and coast along...until he has anurgent need to make a profoundly important decision. The concept of estrangement translates into architecture just as itdoes into philosophy. There is already sufficientdetachment and alienation in today's society; making it tangible does noone a favor. People become driven to acquire things to satisfy a hungerthat things can never satisfy-the inner void that can only be filled bylove, connectedness to other human beings and to one's God. There is asense in which the mechanics of daily life have become the point, to theexclusion of its meaning.
If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again:
or
We can write a Custom Essay just for you.
Browse Essays by Subject