Az elidegenedés kultúrára tett hatása – avagy az európai civilizáció vége (?)

The paper begins with an analysis of Hegelian and Marxist thought. Hegel first formulated the concepts of master/lord (Herrschaft) and servant/bondsman (Knechtschaft) in the famous chapter of The Phenomenology of Spirit (Self-Sufficiency and Non-Self-Sufficiency of Self-Consciousness; Mastery and Servitude), and Marx then used them in one of his most important 1844 essays (Entfremdete Arbeit) to derive the concept of alienation (Entfremdung). This is one aspect of the lecture. Marx describes the various phases of alienation in detail, the final stage being man’s alienation from himself. However, he does not elaborate on this, instead ”leaving” it to his successors, including Nietzsche (the last man, the failed man), Kierkegaard (shadow existence) and numerous 20th century writers and philosophers, from Kafka to Sartre. The list could go on and on, not forgetting the greats of psychoanalysis. This has now become an almost immeasurable tradition. However, neither Hegel nor Marx deals with alienation from culture. The second part of the lecture addresses this issue, examining the influences that affect the foundations of today’s civilised world and how people who increasingly feel alienated (perhaps rightly so) react to this increasingly alien world. The question remains: are people becoming alienated from culture, or is culture becoming alienated from people?

Keywords: alienation, woke and cancel-culture, Hegel, Marx