Blog 2 (Alienation)

One of the crucial points that Karl Marx attempted to inform about was the problem with alienation. He saw four inherent problems involving alienation which were alienation from 'productive activity', 'product', 'fellow workers', and 'human potential'. He saw alienation from 'productive activity' as the fall of creativity and the rise of people merely accomplishing the barest essentials without pursuing greater knowledge. Alienation from 'product' is found when individuals don't feel attached to the products they make, such as factory workers not seeing their contribution in the car that just came off the assembly line. Alienation from 'fellow workers' occurs when individuals have no emotional or social interaction with their coworkers, which is ironic considering that at this time period people were physically working much closer together than ever before. Finally, alienation from 'human potential' is achieved when people have accepted their lot in life due to this new factory-oriented society, and don't push themselves to reach their max potential.

I chose this clip from the Charlie Chaplin film "Modern Times", as I feel it accurately shows the issues of alienation in this modern society, while still being funny. Charlie feels alienated from 'productive activity', as he's performing the same menial task for extended periods of time, to the point where he's not even looking at his work anymore. He also appears alienated from his fellow workers, as they don't really acknowledge or talk to him, other than to berate him for something he does wrong. This shows how his coworkers don't really care about him or his well being. They really only care that he does his job and not try to converse with them. Chaplin is alienated from the product, as he screws the bolts into the sheet of metal, but never gets to see what happens after it goes through his part of the assembly line. As far as he's concerned, he will never see the fruits of his labor in reference to the finished product that those sheets of metal are attached to. While this is only speculation, he doesn't appear to be reaching his human potential from this factory job which he appears to despise. However, this is the job he has, so he will just stick with it, which is what many Americans end up doing.