In one of the past posts I did an image search on flickr using the word “intimacy”. Several of the images I found depicted private scenes of isolated individuals, separated and ignored by their surroundings. I imagine that for the the poster of these images, the sense of intimacy came in the thought of capturing a private moment, the individual unaware that they are being watched. However in each of these cases the stronger concept for me was one of alienation.
The concept of alienation as a response to a discussion of intimacy is not such a stretch as they could pretty accurately be described as antonyms. While intimacy is described as have a close connection or knowledge, alienation is of being separated and isolated.
This posting is not going to be an indepth analysis of any specific part of alientation but a catalogue of some interesting concepts that could be followed up regarding alienation:
Marx & alienation -
Alienation is systemic of capitalism
Fetishism of commodities further alientates the populace.
The concept of God alienates the characteristics of the human being
Industrialisation results in workers losing control of lives, losing autonomy, alienated from their own lives.
alienation within the act of production - losing the spirit and care of production for the making of a product
Alienation Effect
Bertolt Brecht - the continued introduction of the audience into a play, to never allow them to become lost in the characters, to remain as ethical observers. The goal was to create empathy and intimacy with global ethical issues, rather than develop intimacy with particular characters which may cloud moral clarity.
The creation of intimacy can be created through alienation. Through introducing something to us in a new way we are forced to look closely and explore features that we may have previously missed.
There seems to be a pattern that can be created - Intimacy may involve getting to know oneself, seeing that which we have previously not seen, which is through the actions of alienation of our own identity. Is it purely a one way pattern, or is there a cyclical return for intimacy to lead to further alienation?
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