Marxist Alienation Theory and the Problem of Chronic Ennui by Ian Irvine (Hobson)
Rated "G" by the Author.
Last
edited: Monday, January 2, 2023
Posted: Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The 19th and 20th centuries saw numerous attempts to describe and classify symptoms associated with certain psychological 'maladies' previously understood by resort to theology or humoral psychology. Marxist and Western Marxist theories of 'alienation', however, were not that different, in terms of symptom classification, to ancient descriptions of maladies like 'taedium vitae', 'acedia', 'saturnine melancholy' and 'chronic ennui'.
This piece belongs to Historical, Psychological, Sociological and Political Writings, Vol. 4 ofThe Collected Works of Ian Irvine (Hobson). (Nonfiction)
A detailed study of the origins of the New Alienation. The author labels it normative or postmodern ennui and traces its rise to cultural power over the last two centuries.
For the reasons I describe in this book, the world-wide suffering, death and extinction of humanity is very likely to occur, unless nonviolent and democratically determined radical and revolutionary personal and societal actions and changes are taken
