Search

This contribution addresses the question raised by Robin Fox concerning our tribal ancestry and its relevance to modernity and civilization. The discussion centers first on the concept of communitas with the suggestion that it be defined as referring to two different states, the psychological communitas and the sociological communitas. Groups or communities organized along the lines of a sociological communitas are then examined cursorily and their properties are outlined. Numerous tribal groups of that sort have been documented and have been shown to lack the traits of what is called a social organization. The observation of their non-social organization is arguably a fact of major significance in the social sciences, one that has not been clearly highlighted so far. The hypothesis presented in this paper is that such organizations that are anarchic and complex have to be epistemologically dissociated from organizations that are social. Anarchs and social guys thus point to two different ancestries in the genealogy of humankind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there is a very large literature concerning Karl Marx's theory of alienation, there is unfortunately little agreement about even precisely what the theory is, let only how best to use it in empirical research. The purpose of the present paper is to try and identify the major issues concerning the theory. On a highly abstract level of generality, Marx's conception of alienation as it applies to individuals entails a separation between their person and their activity in general and their labour in particular, the products of both, which include such aspects of social structure as classes and the state as well as the immediate physical products of labour, other people in general and certain classes of them in particular, and themselves, including their future, fully developed selves. The problem with comparative-quantitative research into Marx's theory of alienation is not that non-Marxists have undertaken it. Nor is it that they have used the wrong unit of analysis, since Marx's theory has everything to do with individuals and much with their psychology. However, their equation of alienation with consciousness of it is grossly inappropriate, and their claim to have refuted Marx's theory in their own research is preposterous.