On The Meaning of Alienation
Abstract
The problem of alienation is a pervasive theme in the classics of sociology, and the concept
has a prominent place in contemporary work. This paper seeks to accomplish two tasks: to
present an organized view of the uses that have been made of this concept; and to provide
an approach that ties the historical interest in alienation to the modern empirical effort. Five
alternative meanings of alienation are identified: powerlessness, meaninglessness, normlessness,
isolation, and self-estrangement. The derivation of these meanings from traditional sociological
analysis is sketched, and the necessity for making the indicated distinctions is specified. In
each case, an effort is made to provide a viable research formulation of these five alternatives.