2.8 - Schmitt, Richard - Alienation and Autonomy. Marxian Themes. Alienation, Autonomy, And Politics (en)

7/30/2019 2.8 - Schmitt, Richard - Alienation and Autonomy. Marxian Themes. Alienation, Autonomy, And Politics (en)

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Alienation and Autonomy

Alienation and Autonomy

by Richard Schmitt

Source:

PRAXIS International (PRAXIS International), issue: 2 / 1988, pages: 222-236, on www.ceeol.com.
http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.ceeol.com/http://www.dibido.eu/bookdetails.aspx?bookID=278fdab8-6070-4d5d-8b55-8233eda499d4http://www.ceeol.com/


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MARXIAN THEMES: ALIENATION, AUTONOMYAND POLITICS

ALIENATION AUTONOMYRichard Schmitt

1. Alienation and AutonomyIn the Marxian view workers are alienated because they are estranged from theirspecies life, from what makes them most human. Alienation has several elements:lacking control over one's life, being coerced, and unhappy, and being preventedfrom becoming as fully human as possible. In the Marxian view, these elementsare connected: lacking control over their lives, human beings in a capitalist societycannot develop in ways that would enhance their humanity and would make themas rich and accomplished persons as possible. Central to this conception of alienationis a normative claim - namely, that developing one's person and abilities is a verygood, if not the best thing a person can do, - and a factual assumption, that,given the opportunity, human beings would try to develop themselves as fully aspossible. 1Alienation, thus understood, is a peculiar problem for persons living under

capitalism. For alienation - being deprived of the opportunities to develop one'sabilities - cannot occur where people are not free to develop themselves, wheredeveloping oneself is not an intelligible ideal, and where the material conditionsdo not exist for all to develop themselves. Alienation, in short, cannot occur ina feudal society because there neither the requisite freedoms, nor the requiredconception of individual worth, nor the necessary level of productivity exist. Ina capitalist society the condition of alienation is pretty much the same for differentpersons: they are formally free to shape their lives, they are expected to beresponsible for the shape their life takes, but they do not, in fact, have the opportunities to make good use of their formal freedoms, although it is technologicallypossible for them to have the requisite resources.Individuals, in our society, have a generous list of freedoms which the stateenforces, with varying degrees of thoroughness. But these freedoms go togetherwith great differences in economic and hence political power, and with very differentabilities to make use of the society's resources. The material, social and psychological conditions for living freely are often lacking because resources, and thepower that springs from them, are distributed unequally. People are, for instance,free to think as they please, but education, which tends to improve the ability tothink, is not readily available to everybody. People are free to speak but to geta forum in which to speak, and be heard is hard for most but very easy for some,for instance, the owners of daily papers. The freedom to develop into a full andrich human being is there for almost all people. Only a minority, however, hasthe power to use those freedoms. Pressed upon by poor education, economic need,the precariousness of daily life, its members fall far short of fulfillment. In a capitalistsociety persons are formally free, but they lack the opportunity to shape their lives.They are alienated.Praxis International 8:2 July 1988 02060-8448 $2.00


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Praxis International 223Underlying this description of alienation is a concept of the self which emphasizesthe skills and capabilities of the individual person, together with her or his clarityabout purposes, values and life plans for her or himself. The stress is on beingan active person who takes initiative, and is, where needed, assertive and aggressive.

The person with a genuine self runs his or her life as ably and happily as possible.One' 'duplicates" oneself, Marx says, "not only, as in consciousness, intellectuallybut also actively, in reality and therefore [s/]he contemplates him [or her] selfin a world that [s/]he has created".2 Having a self is to have "mastery" and thatmeans to be in charge of one's own life. The person with a strong self is autonomous,and in control of his or her life. 3The concept of alienation is closely associated with that of freedom. But the conceptof freedom has two senses here. 4 Formal freedom, we saw, is a precondition foralienation, the absence of autonomy. But it is also a precondition for freedom in thesecond sense, the sense of autonomy - often called "positive freedom. " Only thosewho are formally free are in a position where, if they had the means tobe autonomous,they could' 'contemplate themselves in a world that they created. " As long as theydo not have the means to be autonomous, they are alienated. 5Alienation thus appears to be closely associated with lack of autonomy. But theconcept of autonomy has recently come under serious criticisms, including theclaim that autonomy is a source of alienation. Being autonomous is thus seen, bysome, as overcoming alienation, while others identify autonomy as the root ofalienation. Since both views - that alienation consists of being autonomous andthat it consists of not being autonomous - have a good deal to be said for them,we face a serious dilemma here.In this paper I will resolve this dilelnma by distinguishing two senses of autonomy:autonomy conceived as separateness from others, and autonomy as occupying adistinct and acknowledged place in a network of relations. Autonomy in the formersense alienates; autonomy in the latter sense liberates.Autonomy as separateness is most often found in the lives and thinking ofstereotypical males; autonomy as distinctiveness in the lives of stereotypical females.The distinction between the two senses of autonomy will lead us finally to distinguishdifferent forms of alienation which are associated with the lives of men and ofwomen respectively.2. A Case HistoryWhat makes the idea of autonomy so attractive? There are endlessly many

different stories to tell in answer to that question. I want to look at one such storythat focuses on the differences between the lives ofmen and women because thatdifference will lead us to the distinction between different senses of autonomy,which we will make use of later in the course of this reflection about alienation.Much of the controversy about the desirability of autonomy arises from the factthat autonomy has been discussed too abstractly, without recognizing that in thelives of women, autonomy means something rather different from what it meansin the lives of men. 6Viginia Woolf displays some of the differences between men's and women's livesin painful detail in To the Lighthouse7 The men - Mr. Ramsay, his student,


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224 Praxis InternationalMr. Tansley, the biologist, William Banks - are thinkers and scientists; they studyand do science. They have their' 'work" which is in the public eye and is judgedas important or insignificant by other participants in this world of work. Theirlives revolve around that work and the figure they cut in that work world. Theytalk about numbers and books. For women that is an alien world:

What did it all mean? To this day she had no notion. A square root? What was that?Her sons knew. She leant on them; on cubes and square roots; that was what theywere talking about now; on Voltaire and Madame de Stael; on .the character ofNapoleon. . .she let it uphold and sustain her, this admirable fabric of the masculineintelligence . . . Then she woke up; it was still being fabricated. 8This is Mrs. Ramsay' s view ofmen and their life. She admires male intelligence

as an utter outsider, but she also regards it with amusement as not quite real:" itwas still being fabricated". For a younger visitor, Lily Briscoe, the matter is moredifficult. She also feels herself outside the male world but she wants to have work,- in that male sense of "work" - she wants to paint. Men repeatedly discourageher; her internalized traditional role never allows her to work wholeheartedly.Both women play a very different role from the men. Here is Mrs. Ramsayagain, presiding over the dinner table:. . . Nothing seemed to have merged. They all sat separate. And the whole of theeffort of merging and flowing and creating rested on her. Again she felt, as a factwithout hostility, the sterility ofmen, for if she did not do it nobody would do it . . . 9

While men think and are clever, women support, create a warm ambience, raisechildren, and protect them against the insensitivity of their fathers, and of othermen. To women belongs the "whole of the effort of merging and flowing andcreating". Women are caretakers. Mrs. Ramsey takes care of her eight children,of Mr. Ramsey and any other male that comes around when he is out of sortsand needy. Lily Briscoe, who is not married and paints, nevertheless feels thedemands of a lonely Mr. Ramsey, in the later portions of the book, but resistsher 'natural' impulse to take care of them."Taking care" spans a wide range of activities from seeing to food and clothes,to the maintenance of the house and the garden, to meeting people's emotionalneeds. That is a great deal ofwork, much of it organizational, but it also requiresthe ability to understand what everyone needs, even though they may not havesaid so, and that in turn requires a good deal of careful thought. Mrs. Ramsayspends a good deal of time thinking about everyone around her, and so doesLily Briscoe.Of course, men love women, and couples experience moments of intimacy. Buteven then, when Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey sit together at the end of an eventful day,he wants an avowal of love from her. Even in moments of closeness he takes andshe gives. Positions and relations of men and women are quite different.Men's relations to women are those ofdomination: contempt mixed with insistentdemands for affection, support, etc. Women are at best adored, at worst used toperform a wide range of services. Watching Mr. Banks looking adoringly atMrs. Ramsay, Lily Briscoe thinks that' 'no woman could worship another womanin the way he worshipped," 10 for women were not as distant from other women


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Praxis International 225and thus saw them more clearly. Even men's love for women is the love of thedominant male who never takes the trouble to seek to know the object afhis affectionseriously; in order to maintain domination, women must be kept at a distance.They are kept out of the male world and that makes them utterly different. They,therefore, remain incomprehensible to men. Women by contrast have much morecomplex understandings of others; they see the faults as well as the virtues of otherpeople.Nor do men dominate only women: the relations between men are relations of

potential competition. Men write and produce work that is public, that is judgedand criticized by others. Their relations to one another are competitive and judgmental. At the end of the novel, we witness a rare moment of intimacy betweenMr. Ramsay and his youngest son J ames, who has just sailed a small boat outto the Lighthouse. "Well done!" says Mr. Ramsay, and his son is terribly pleased,(but, of course, conceals his pleasure behind a mask of indifference).ll Amongmen, even affection is expressed as a judgment; love appears contingent on goodperformance.The intellectuals in To the Lighthouse are in competition with one another for

public recognition, fame and honors. Competitors are always a potential threatto one another. The successful competitor is in a position to make the loser dosomething he is not willing to do:- unless made to. The outcome of competitionis domination.The different extent to whicbmen and women have power makes them intosignificantly different persons (A more complete account would have to detail

women's lack of power in the sexual sphere, in raising children, in culturalproduction, and in science. 12) Men's power allows them to act out their feelings.Mr. Ramsay, when annoyed, flies into a terrible rage. Mr. Tansley, when feelingthreatened, becomes hostile and assertive. There is a short distance between malesensations and their actions: anger, criticism, demands. Their emotions, ratherthan becoming accessible to language are directly expressed in action. Men tendto 'act out' their emotions .. Women cannot afford to be so expressive; their hostilefeelings are repressed; others are veiled in the company of men.

In addition, since women are caretakers they are expected to know what is needed.Because men cannot openly acknowledge weakness, needs, or dependence, theyexpect their needs to be divined by women. Women are expected to assuage aman's feelings without his ever articulating them.Thus women are not only prevented from openly expressing negative feelings,- if they do show anger, they must also burst into tears and show weakness

but they are also expected to sense what has not been expressed, and understandwhat has not been talked about. Hence women talk a great deal about emotions,about persons, about relationships, if not to others, - the women in To the Lighthouseseem quite isolated from one another - at least to themselves. Their inner sensationsare not put into action immediately; they are put into words instead.Thus with different lives, due in large part to different positions of power, come

different personalities. Men act in the wide world but to women they appear, asMrs. Ramsay says, "sterile" .. The intelligence thatMrs. Ramsay so admires whenit deals with books, or numbers is not matched by intelligence in thinking aboutpersons, emotions or relationships .. This is often put as "men are not in touch


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226 Praxis Internationalwith their feelings" as if theirs was a perceptual deficit. But it is not that men arenot aware of their inner states, but that, instead of thinking about them, they act onthem. Thus they are aware of, butdo not understand their feelings, nor those ofothers.Women, instead, being dominated, cannot afford to act on their impulses. In additiontheir role is to read the subtle signs ofmen's feelings and to understand persons soas to be able to placate them where necessary. They learn to understand persons.It is important to add here that this distinction between male and female worlds,power and, thus, personality is not just a perception ofVirginiaWoolf's. The samedistinctions are drawn in recent psychological literature, e.g. in JeanBakerMiller'sToward a New Psychology o fWomen:

We all begin life deeply attached to the people around us. Men, or boys, are encouragedto move out of this state of existence - in which they and their fate are intimatelyintertwined in the lives and fates of other people. Women are encouraged to remainin this state. . . 13

A man wants. . . first of all, to sail through every situation "feeling like a man" - that is strong,self-sufficient and fully competent. He required of himself that he always feel thatway . . . at the same time . . . he harbored the seemingly contradictory wish that his wifewould, somehow, solve everything for him with suchmagic and dispatch that he neverwould be aware of his weakness at all. She should do this without being asked . . . 14Mrs. Ramsay's perceptionofherselfand ofother women is certainly that' 'they andtheir fate are intimately intertwined in the lives and fates ofother people". Only thevocabularly is new. Jean Baker Miller uses the term: "affiliation" for that sort ofrelationship; VirginiaWoolfdoes not give it a name, but recognizes the fact. Womentend to affiliate and an important element in that is their' 'helping in the growth ofothers" 15 not just of children, but of men also. Men do not do that. "A man canseldom give fully to his 'equals"'. 16 Mrs. Ramsay recognizes that and calls men

"sterile. "Male inability to talk about and understand persons and their emotional life hasnot changed:In a study on this period [latency] Luria describes the events in a grade schoolplayground. She talks about the boys' learning not only to be "warlike" and to winout over others, but how to cheat and get away with it. If she asks the girls what theyare doing they often answer' 'Nothing". The girls are hanging around the edges of theplayground, "just talking' '. What are they talking about? They are talking about theissues in their families and what to do about them. In talking about their families, thegirls are, of course, very involved in an emotional interaction with each other. 17

Lily Briscoe's hesitationwith respect to her work is still replicated in the experienceofwomen to-day. Women who have, by all accounts, very successful academic orartistic careers feel a deep split between their identity in work. 183. Alienation as Lack ofAutonomy

Is Mrs. Ramsay alienated because she lacks autonomy? For a moment one mighthesitate. Mrs. Ramsay, one might say, runs her own life and that of others. She is


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Praxis International 227in charge of a fairly large household. She sees to the roof getting fixed and thegarden getting cared for. She is in charge of the education of her children. Shegoes out, when she chooses, to look after the poor and sick in the village. Shedoes a certain amount of decorous matchmaking among her younger guests. Sheis not taking orders from anyone. She has a great deal more autonomy than hermaids, her cook or her gardener. She has more autonomy than her sons anddaughters. What is more, Mrs. Ramsay is intelligent and she discharges her varioustasks very competently.One might also point out that relation to her husband, she is clearly the strongerand more steady one of the two. She nurtures herself. There is no one for herto go to for affirmation and validation. She seems to be able to do that for herself.Her husband, by contrast, is quite dependent on her for fairly constant support.However well he does in his work as an elderly philosophy professor, the selfesteem that is an essential ingredient of autonomy escapes him. He keeps comingaround, wanting to be praised, wanting to be reassured that he is alright, wantinghis wife to say that she loves him, after she has spent a lifetime making his lifehang together and enabling him to do what he most wanted to dO. 19 Mr. Ramsayis dependent on the nurturing of his wife and other women and to that extent lacksautonomy. By comparison, Mrs. Ramsay seems centered and self-reliant.Nevertheless, Mrs. Ramsay lacks autonomy. Her time or her energy are neverher own; she must always be ready to help, to understand, to mollify, to "mergeand flow and create" connections between the people around her. Someone mightchoose that sort of life. But Mrs. Ramsay did not make that choice because it wasnot for her to make. Her world is not of her own making in a number of senses.She did not choose to fill a stereotypical caretaker's role, nor did she have anysay in determining what such a role would be, whoever filled it. Society, malesociety, determined what the caretaker role should be, and that biological femaleswere to play that role. She did not choose the outlines of the private world of thehome which is hers, nor did she choose to be confined to that world. Besides,being excluded from the public world, she has no effect on it, on the world ofmen, of books, of politics, of business. It is not possible for her to contemplateherself in a world which she has created.It is important to understand what that lack of autonomy consists of. Philosophershave, not surprisingly, tended to intellectualize the concept of autonomy. Theyhave argued that the ordinary understanding of autonomy as self-determinationleaves open the possibility that one determine one's life in thoroughly conformistways in order, above all, not to stick out, to be different, and to attract noticeto oneself. This, philosophers have argued, is notgenuine autonomy for that requires,in addition, that one determine for oneself what one's moral principles should be.To be autonomous, on this view, is to determine for oneself, rationally, what wouldbe the best life for oneself. 20,21 That tends to reduce autonomy to a psychologicalstate internal to the person, to an ability to think rationally about one's life choices.But life choices cannot be made rationally in the absence of relevant experiencesand they are accessible only to those who are able to tryout various possibilities.What Mrs. Ramsey lacks is not the freedom to think about what sort of life shemight have wanted to lead, but the freedom of action that would make such thinkingmore than idle speculation. Choosing a life for oneself involves not only thinking


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228 Praxis Internationalabout what one is going to do, but trying it out, observing the lives of others,asking advice, making false starts, beginning all over on a different trajectory,and practicing the way one has chosen. Most people become professionalphilosophers only after getting a good deal of education and actually taking somephilosophy courses to find out what philosophy is all about, etc. Mrs. Ramsayhad no access to that sort of education. She did not have the requisite experiencesfor her to think usefully about whether she wanted to be a professional philosopherlike her husband. Autonomy requires that one be able to act, that one have theeconomic means - a point Virginia Woolf made so emphatically22,23 - becauseone needs time and leisure to find one's path, and that one have access to all theresources one needs. Thinking rationally about one's life choices may well beessential to autonomy, but it is impossible if one cannot act. 24 Action, in its turn,is impossible if one's range of actions is circumscribed by, for instance, genderstereotypes which restrict one's access to society's resources. Autonomy is,therefore, not an exclusively psychological state. A person is autonomous onlywhere social conditions permit the required freedom of action. The autonomy ofpersons requires a very specific social order which make full use of one's formalfreedoms possible.But autonomy does, of course, have its internal psychological aspect also.Autonomy is closely connected with self-respect. 25 Self-respect here does not onlyconsist of one's recognition of one's own worth, but also of one's willingness toact and to take risks; it consists of one's confidence that new and difficult projectsmay succeed. Insofar as autonomy includes exploring new and unaccustomedactivities, self-respect is the willingness to take on those new activities, and theself-confidence required for succeeding.26 Self-respect, for Mrs. Ramsay, wouldinclude the willingness to extend the narrow limits of her life, as defined by hersociety. But she does not have that sort of inner autonomy. On the contrary, shehas internalized the dominant male conception of the female caretaker role. Sheaccepts the fact that the male world, the world of books and numbers, is completelyclosed to her. What is more, she believes that women ought to lead the sort oflife she leads. She always wants women to get married because that is what shethinks women's role is. Lily Briscoe has internalized the same stereotypes, albeitnot as completely. Mr. Ramsay hanging around and wanting sympathy when sheis setting up her easel to paint is enough to distract her, even though she is ableto resist his unspoken and, to him perhaps even unperceived, demands. Both womenhave internalized, to some extent, the pervasive hostility of men against women.That saps their self-respect and diminishes autonomy.Of course, Mrs. Ramsay and Lily Briscoe have some external autonomy, andtheir lack of internal autonomy is also only partial. Mrs. Ramsay acknowledgesher lack of education, but part of her is also bemused by and contemptuous ofthe heated exchanges at dinner over matters she considers "sterile", and of maleinability to see what is going on before their very eyes or to foster relations betweenpeople. Lily Briscoe feels the pull of her traditional female role but struggles againstit. That struggle, itself, absorbs a good deal of the energy that should have goneinto her painting.

It is not difficult to understand why feminists have insisted that women needautonomy. 27 Neither woman in Virginia Woolf's novel is able to make full use


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Praxis International 229of her abilities. Mrs. Ramsay is intelligent but uneducated. She is so taken upwith caring for others, that she has not learned to get nurturing for herself, toshare her thoughts and feelings with others, and to set her sights higher than avery traditional role - however well she fills that role. Lily Briscoe is more willingto challenge existing stereotypes, but the pressure to be more ordinary, to marry,to be always ready to support a lTIan in need, is a constant distraction. It is impossiblefor her to have self-respect in a world in which every male can patronize her andtell her that her painting does not amount to much.To be autonomous requires that one think about one's life choices, but it also

requires that one be able to make tentative choices, to experiment, to move inone direction or another, and that one be able to do all of that with confidence.Lacking autonomy in those senses, women, then and now, are alienated.Men, of course, also lack autonomy but in very different ways. Mr. Ramsayis emotionally infantile. He needs constant mothering. Many externals, such asfood and shelter need to be provided for him by others. Without Mrs. Ramsay'sefforts there would be no comfortable ambience for him to exist in. He no morecontemplates a world he has created than does his wife. He, too, is alienated buthe has a considerable degree of autonomy in other areas.

4. The Critique of AutonomyIris Young has criticized this account of autonomy as excessively individualist.The underlying conception of a self is of one who is "separate and unified . . .self-sufficient, not in a relation of dependence to others, the freely contractingindividual' , .28 This conception of the self with its stress on individual autonomyhas been attacked, mainly by feminists. Thus Naomi Sheman writes:There is every reason to react with alarm to the prospect of a world filled withself-actualizing persons pulling their own strings, capable of guiltlessly saying 'no'to anyone about anything, and freely choosing when to begin and end all theirrelationships. It is hard to see how, in such a world, children could be raised, thesick or disturbed could be cared for, or people could know each other through theirlives and grow old together. 29

Sheman questions the idea that people should be autonomous by way of being"self-actualizing [and] pulling their own strings" on the grounds that it wouldmake solid relationships, like those between parents and children impossible. Butis that criticism plausible? It would seem that autonomy is perfectly well compatiblewith solid commitments to other persons. It may well be true that the search forautonomy ofmany men has been made possible by women who did the caretakingand lacked autonon1y. But it would seem that one can well be autonomous - chooseone's own way of life according to principles adopted freely by oneself - and choosea firm commitment to other persons. The concept of autonomy does not limit,it is often claimed, what the autonomous person may choose. Autonomy has todo with the way in which persons arrive at their choices; it has no implicationsfor what they choose by such an autonomous process of choice. 3DIt is perfectly true that if a person is autonomous nothing stands in his or her

way of making any commitment whatever to other persons. But persons are notborn autonomous; they become autonomous, if at all, only as a result of considerable


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230 Praxis Internationaleffort. What is more, autonomy is not a state one enters into and can then take forgranted; becoming autonomous is a never ending project, it is never automatic.Autonomy, when achieved, must be maintained. Finally, one may be autonomous insome aspects ofone's life but not be autonomous in others. Thus the effort towardsautonomy continues, one tries to maintain autonomy one has already acquired, andstrives to gain it in areas where one still is dependent. No person is completely autonomous; autonomy is never secure but is constantly to be expanded and maintained.Trying to remain autonomous and to expand and secure autonomy is much moreclearly incompatible with long term commitments. If I were securely, once andfor all, my own person I could choose to make all sorts of commitments. But Iam not. I am trying to be my own person, emerging from dependence on parents,teachers, friends and lovers, not to mention employers, or benefactors. My attentionis focused on being my own person, following my own projects, developing myown abilities, meeting my own needs. Whatever commitments I may want to maketo others, I need to be clear that they do not foreclose maintaining and expandingmy self-directed projects. I will need to be very careful not to make commitmentswhich will, at some future time, put the needs, or wishes, or projects of othersabove my own, for once that happens my life is no longer mine, directed by me,but becomes an appendage to the life of that other person or persons. Becomingand remaining autonomous are difficult to reconcile with unqualified long termcommitments to others. Persons seeking autonomy Will, and must, see the needsof others as possible threats to their own search for being exclusively their ownpersons. They will wisely keep themselves at a distance and maintain theirseparateness. It is not an accident, then, that male autonomy has traditionally beenmade possible by women's lack of autonomy, for the men determined to be theirown men could not reliably be counted on to be there when children, the sick andaged, as well as other men needed care and nurture that you could count on.This criticismofautonomyhas been supported by at least two other considerations,which I shall mention only briefly because they require considerably more arguingthan I can given them here. Typical male autonomy has been blamed for muchof the enmity and destructiveness of public life in our time, and for the fact thatautonomous men never can reach full autonomy, but always remain emotionallydependent on others, mostly women, who are not, in that same sense, autonomous.Virginia Woolf raised the first of these criticisms:

They too, the patriarchs, the professors, had endless difficulties, terrible drawbacksto contend with . . . True they had money and power, but only at the cost of harboringin their breast an eagle, a vulture, forever tearing the liver out and plucking at thelungs - the instinct for possession, the rage for acquisition which drives them todesire other people's fields and goods perpetually; to make frontiers and flags; battleships and poison gas; to offer up their own lives and their children's lives. 31

The autonomy of men like Mr. Ramsay, and his academic colleagues gives riseto unrelenting competition and a permanent sense of precariousness. Foreverthreatened and threatening, men's relations to other men, as individuals and asentire nations, forever break out into conflict, struggle and war which destroysour world periodically, and which Woolf scathingly calls "the lack of civilisation"(ibid.). Jean Baker Miller echoes that critique of the concept of autonomy.


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Praxis International 231The final criticism of autonomy as separateness begins with the observation,

made earlier, that however hard Mrs. Ramsay tries to reassure her husband thathe is adequate and loved, he does not become more autonomous. However muchsoothing and affection she supplies, he comes back for more. There is in the midstof all his autonomy a gaping lack of self-respect, which all her patient ministrationscannot fill: his autonomy does not provide him with self-respect. Mr. Ramsay'sautonomy in the work world, and from his family ties, is connected with hisemotional dependence on Mrs. Ramsay. He lacks emotional independence becausehe is autonomous in the way of many men in the world at large. His autonomyconsists of not admitting to his needs, and not acknowledging those of other men,let alone ofwomen, but, instead, of closing himself against his feelings. His owninner life thus becomes as unmanageable for him as that of others. He becomesunable to meet his own needs because he is not even allowed to avow having them.He therefore needs others to assuage his needs and, thereby, becomes dependenton them.These criticisms of the concept of autonomy confront us with a serious dilemma,which may be stated in more than one way: Mrs. Ramsay's total absorption innurturing and caring for others leaves her lacking autonomy and hence alienated.But, as Scheman claims with considerable plausibility, if every adult strove to beautonomous, there would be no one to nurture those who are incapable of autonomyand who need nurturing. We seem then to face a choice between alienated lives,at least for women, or a world which is too desolate to contemplate, because itis, in that world, not possible' 'that children could be raised, the sick or disturbedcould be cared for, or people could know each other through their lives and growold together. ' '32The upshot of these arguments is that if alienation consists of lack of autonomy,as I claimed in section I, then however burdensome alienation might be, we would

be better off not struggling against it, for the price of overcoming alienation bygaining autonomy seems too high. We are, it seems, better off alienated. Theoppression of women and the emotional impoverishment ofmen is not as bad aswhat would ensue were we to try to remedy these two forms of alienation.5. Autonomy and Separateness

This conclusion is, of course, not acceptable to feminists. We do not want toacquiesce in the oppression of women or make our peace with the emotionalinarticulateness, and the destructiveness ofmen. We therefore need to reexaminethe preceding argument to see whether we cannot escape this dilemma.Central to the concept of autonomy is the idea that persons must be separateif they are to be autonomous. 33 For there is an important sense in which anautonomous persons must be "his" or "her" own person. That much the storyof Mrs. Ramsay makes very clear. There is also a very obvious sense in whichpersons are, in fact, distinct, namely insofar as my body is distinct from anyoneelse's. Hence in a perfectly ordinary sense my feelings, thoughts, and emotionsare mine. So are the books I write, the plans I make, and the affection I lavishon others. What is more, it is important to those others that they receive my loveand not someone else's.


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232 Praxis InternationalIn the light of these pre-philosophical commonplaces, it is commonly believed,that each autonomous person has his or her own domain, a body, an inner life,abilities, work, a reputation, position in the world, etc. It is always, in principle,possible to say to whom something belongs: Who invented the first telegraph, who

discovered a mathematical theorem, who is the author of a particular poem. Whenautonomous individuals work together the contribution of each is clearly identifiableand often so identified.The favorite metaphor for this sort of autonomy is that of possession. Persons,are thought of as the owners of private property, which includes themselves andtheir attributes: "Every man has property in his [sic!] person." 34 A personpossesses his or her abilities, his or her body. A man possesses his wife and hischildren. Husbands feel possessed by their families. Exclusiveness is central tothis notion of property. My property is mine alone, to do with as I please andso is my person mine alone. The exclusive relation one has to oneself is oftenalso framed in cognitive terms: I and I alone know my own mental states directly.While it is undoubtedly true that autonomous persons are distinct from oneanother, in some sense, it is not acceptable to construe that distinctness ofaptonomous persons in terms of the exclusive ownership of one's person. Thecriticisms raised against the concept of autonomy are, it turns out, criticisms ofa very specific understanding of the concept of autonomy - namely, that autonomouspersons are separate from each other in the sense that each is the exclusive ownerof her or his person. We now need to see why the autonomous person should notbe thought of as separate in that specific sense.This vocabulary of separate persons, who have clearly identifiable attributes,properties, accomplishments, etc. is useful to describe the lives of men insofaras they write books, build financial empires, or even insofar as they compete withothers on a humbler scale for jobs, for advancement at work. Mutatis mutandisit now also applies often to women insofar as they make their careers in the publicworld. In this public world, it makes sense for persons to think of themselves asseparate individuals. They think of themselves as strong and self-sufficient. Theycompete with and judge each other. Distance characterizes all their relationships.They do not knowthemselves; they cannot express their needs and they cannotexplain themselves. They are thus essentially disconnected from others. Given thelives they lead, such persons may well think of themselves as separate individualsin the sense of being sole and exclusive owners of their persons and attributes.But in the life of Mrs. Ramsay whose person is always at the service of herchildren, her husband, his guests, not to mention the poor in the village whon1she visits regularly, that sense of autonomy as separateness makes no sense. Her lifeand person are, of course hers, but never hers alone. On the contrary, they arealways hers in relation to other persons. Her husband thinks of his books, andhis reputation as a philosopher, as exclusively his. But Mrs. Ramsay's task is tosee that the separate persons around her dinner table "merge" and form a group.Separateness is a challenge to her. Her life is always life with, in relation to. Sheis not under her own exclusive control; on the contrary, the demands of husbandand children structure her days. This does not mean that she cannot call "her"life her own, in some sense, but only that "my" and "mine" have a differentsense from the individualist sense of "exclusive possession" .35


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Praxis International 233In contemporary language Mrs. Ramsay is "affiliated". Her life takes placein a web of relationships, which make her be who she is; she has no identityapart from those relationships. These relationships are different from the relationsthat Marx sees as constitutive of individuals - "the individual is nothing but the

ensemble of social relations" 36 - for relations of, say, exploitation obtain whetherone is aware of them or not; one does not need to work at them to have them.Mrs. Ramsay's relationships are her work; she moulds them, thinks about them,nurtures them in her work of "merging and flowing". In these relationships shecan, of course, differentiate what comes from her from what comes from someoneelse, but "mine" and "yours" in that context no longer refer to exclusive possession. Words like "mine" and "yours" acquire a different meaning.Some further examples shouldmake that clearer. More important, they will beginto suggest that the language of separateness does not even do justice to the livesof men.In the life of the single man, in his youth, becoming himself is his project. Thatdoes not mean that he does not get help from friends, lovers, teachers, therapists.But it is clearly his project and, in a significantly ambiguous sense, "his alone" .Then he marries. Let us assume that our man is not a stereotypical one, for whommarriage is simply taking on another form of the role of male domination. Heis not marrying his domestic servant. Now becoming a fuller person is still hisproject, but in places that shades into becoming "our" project in several ways:because changing himself is part and parcel of working out a better relationship;because transforming the relationship is also to transform himself, because forhim to surrender certain defenses requires for his partner to surrender hers, becauseseeing himself more clearly in certain respects is the result of negotiating withher who he is, whose view of him is the correct one and working out one thatis reasonable for both, etc.; in this situation, it becomes much less appropriateto think of his self as separate, because while it is always his self it is always aself in a relationship. That relationship is, in part, what it is because he is whohe is, but the converse is also true: He is who he is because he is in this particularrelationship, with this particular person.Families have traditions, rituals they perform, stories they tell. Different elementsmay have been contributed by one or the other member of the family - and everyonemay remember and acknowledge that - but the ritual is clearly everyone's, forthe element originated by one becomes a part of the family ritual only when itis taken up by the family as a whole.Great ideas maybe someone's. But what an isolated thinker has is not a "greatidea". It becomes that only in the social context, when it is understood, admired,built on, elaborated, clarified by many others working in a common tradition.Authors of academic books often provide long lists of people who helped themwrite their books. Such expressions of gratitude usually end with "the errors are,however, all my own' ' . But this exclusive ownership of errors is obviously false:If a friend reads part of my manuscript and misses an error that I made, the erroris then also his. If he makes a suggestion which I adopt, which turns out to beerroneous, the error is not mine alone. If both of us work in an intellectual traditionthat is later discredited, the errors of that tradition are not just mine or his, butof everyone that contributed to the perpetuation and development of that tradition.


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234 Praxis InternationalIt is true that I put the erroneous words on paper, and the physical effort is mine.The content of those words however are mine only in a weaker sense, insofar asI participate in a collective project. .Examples can be multiplied endlessly of situations where the possessive senseof "mine" and "yours" is inapplicable. Since the term "separate" is associatedwith the exclusive sense of possession, I will say that persons, in relationships, are"distinct" to indicate that there is a domain that is theirs but not theirs exclusively.6. Two Senses of Autonomy

The differences between persons being distinct and being separate can help clearup the dilemmas formulated at the end of section 4.Mrs. Ramsay lacks autonomy precisely insofar as no one has recognized thatit is not for men to determine what role she is to play, or what the demands of

that role should be. In order to gain autonomy and overcome her alienation,Mrs. Ramsay needs others - and herself - to recognize and acknowledge her distinctexistence. But by the same token it is not for Mrs. Ramsay, or anyone else, todetermine by him or herself alone what his or her social role is to be. Personsare not separate in the sense that their lives are theirs alone, and for them aloneto shape it whatever way they please. But neither does anyone's life belong tosomeone else for that person to determine the contours of the life of another person.For the stereotypical male in this story, the situation is different. Separatenessis what he claims for himself. His autonomy pretends to consist of his exclusiveownership of himself and hence exclusive right of self-determination. But in orderto make that claim at all plausible, he must act separate as far as that is possible

and that means, in practice, playing an elaborate charade of separateness.37 ThusMr. Ramsay comes around, making a show of his separateness by being totallyunaware, for instance, of his son's unhappiness at the cancelled outing to thelighthouse, deeply absorbed in his recitation of the Charge o f the Light Brigade,but his performance of separateness works only because he does get the needsmet which he is unwilling even to acknowledge. "It is the women's responsibilityto supply the needs of the dominant group so that its members can continue todeny these feelings. "38 But the price he pays for this facade of separateness is,of course, alienation for he cannot participate in the relation to Mrs. Ramsayasan equal. He cannot acknowledge his needs and therefore cannot negotiate theirfulfillment. He must be dependent on her.It is true then that autonomy alienates, but only if to be autonomous is to pretend,

albeit not intentionally so, to be separate in the sense of being the exclusive ownerof one's person. This kind of autonomy is alienating, in part, because it is alwaysunconsciously put on and works only because others - women, usually - do notperform the same charade. It is also alienating because it deprives people of controlover their lives because they cannot acknowledge their needs, and cannot sharewith others. They are, therefore, unable to think rationally about how they wantto lead their lives.Autonomy, in that sense of separateness, would very obviously disrupt sociallife. But autonomy that rests on mutual recognition of distinctness, thatacknowledges everyone's contribution to a relationship, builds on social life and


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Praxis International 235overcomes alienation. Lacking autonomy in that sense is the very heart of alienation.The project of overcoming alienation must include the abolition of lack of autonomyin that sense.There are, then, two distinct senses of autonomy and hence two distinct sensesof alienation. It is therefore legitimate for women whose distinctness is notacknowledged to demand autonomy in the sense of having their own role in theirrelationships - roles which they are full participants in shaping. It is equallylegitimate, for men and women to work to put an end to the institutions that compelus to act as ifwe were separate persons, each exclusive owners of ourselves, and

compel us to be distant from our own persons in order to be able to put a distancebetween ourselves and others. 39, 40It turns out to be true then, as we saw some people argue in section 4, that

autonomy and long term commitments are compatible, but only if we understandcorrectly what autonomy is and what it means to be a person. The problem is,to begin with, a conceptual one. But concepts are the reflections of practices anda change in our thinking requires a change in our way of life. In order to gainautonomy and still be solidly in relation we must change the way we think aboutourselves and the way we live. This struggle - to end the separation betweenourselves and others - is a struggle to overcome different forms of alienation.

NOTESThis paper has profited a great deal from careful reading and comments by Linda Alcoff, Lucy Candib,Lisa Feldman, Tom Moody and Iris Young.

1. Sandra Bartky, "Narcissism, Femininity and Alienation," Social Theory and Practice 8,(1982), 127-143.

2. Robert Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader (New York, 1978), 76.3. Thoreau, in prison overnight for not paying his poll-tax, was nevertheless in control of hislife. More or less temporary restraints do not necessarily produce alienation. Whether they do, or

not, depends on the extent to which the restraint is, even if indirectly, chosen.4. Jon Elster, Making Sense o f Marx (Cambridge, 1985).5. This is an oversimplified account of alienation. I have developed a much richer account in

my book Alienation an d Class (Cambridge: Schenkman 1983). But the conception of autonomyemployed in that book tends to shift back and forth between the two different senses of autonomydistinguished later on in this paper.

6. Such an opening is likely to put the reader on guard against illegitimate generalizations, orpartisan assertions, and rightly so: the lives ofmen and women vary widely; whatever generalizationswe make, are certain to have all kinds of exceptions. The same stricture applies, of course, alsoto discussions of alienation. Each human being is unique, his or her life is different from that ofevery other person. General claims about alienation will fit some persons more completely thanothers. Similarly whatever we say about the different lives of men and women may fit the l ivesof some of them better than those of others. Such generalizations are important to the extent thatthey point out something important to us about the lives of many.

7. Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (New York, 1927).8. Woolf, To the Lighthouse, 159.9. Woolf, To the Lighthouse, 126.10. Woolf, To the Lighthouse, 75.11. Woolf, To the Lighthouse, 306.12. Alison Jaggar, Feminist Politics and Human Nature (Totowa, N.l., 1983), chapter 10.13. Jean Baker Miller, Towards a New Psychology for Women (Boston, 1976), 86.14. Miller, Towards a New Psychology for Women, 32-33.


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236 Praxis International15. Miller, Towards a New Psychology fo r Women, 40.16. Miller, Towards a New Psychology fo r Women, 51.17. Jean Baker Miller, "The Developn1ent of Women's Sense of Self" Work in Progress 12,

(1984), 1-15.18. Sara Ruddick, & Pamela Daniels, ed., Working It Out (New York, 1977).19. Nor is that worry totally neurotic. To the extent that her love is expected of her as a matterof fulfilling her socially ordained role, it is not freely given and thus he can, indeed, never be sure

that she loves him.20. John Benson, "Who is the Autonomous Man?" Philosophy 58, (1983), 5-17.21. Arthur Kuflik, "The Inalienability of Autonomy" Philosophy an d Public Affairs 13, (1984),

271-298.22. Virginia Woolf, A Room o f One's Oli'n (New York, 1929).23. Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (New York, 1938).24. Mary Gibson, "Consent and Autonomy" in To Breathe Freely: Risk, Consent and Air., ed.

Mary Gibson, (Totowa, N.l., 1985), 150.25. Martha C. Nussbaum, "Shame, Separateness and Political Unity: Aristotle's Criticism ofPlato" in Essays in Aristotle's Ethics, ed. Amelie O. Rorty (Berkeley, 1980) .26. Richard Schmitt, Martin Heidegger on Being Human (Gloucester, M.A., 1976), 173.27. Jean Grimshaw, Philosophy an d Feminist Thinking (Minneapolis, 1986).28. Iris Young, " 'Review of Richard Schmitt, Alienation and Class"Human Studies 8, (1985),

397-401.29. Naomi Scheman, "Individualism and the Objects of Psychology" in Discovering Reality ed.

Sandra Harding and Merri ll Hintikka (Dordrecht, 1983), 240.30. Lawrence Haworth, Autonomy: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology and Ethics (New Haven,1986).31. Woolf, A Room afOne's Own, 56.32. Scheman, "Individualism and the Objects of Psychology", 240.33. Martha C. Nussbaum, "Shame, Separateness and Political Unity: Aristotle's Criticism of

Plato".34. John Locke, The Second Treatise o f Govenunent (New York, 1952), 17.35. This account ofMrs. Ramsay's connectedness blurs the important distinction between alienated

and unalienated connectedness. That distinction must be developed elsewhere.36. Marx, K., "Theses on Feuerbach" in Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome o fClassical GermanPhilosophy ed. Frederick Engels (New York, 1941).37. The reasons for this persistent charade have not been discussed in this paper. I have triedto provide an explanation of this phenomenon in my book, Alienation and Class (Cambridge:Schenkman, 1983).38. Miller, Toward a New Psychology for Women, 34.39. Gibson, "Consent and Autonomy", 148.40. Marjorie Weinzweig, "Should a Feminist Choose a Marriage-Like Relationship?" Hypatia2, (1986), 139-160.

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2.8 - Schmitt, Richard - Alienation and Autonomy. Marxian Themes. Alienation, Autonomy, And Politics (en)