2.1         Psychology of Alienation

The individual is aware of the limitation of their own knowledge, and of their own impotence before nature. The lack of knowledge about nature brings sensorial and emotional inconveniences to the individual. Sensorial inconveniences are a product of a direct, painful relationship with nature. Emotional inconveniences are products of a reflective relationship with nature. The most apparent emotional state is the fear that is the consequence of insufficient knowledge, and/or impotence of the individual to oppose natural inconveniences. The individual rids themselves of the inconveniences within the limits of their own possibilities.  

If the individual does not accept their own impotence where they are objectively unable to surpass it, they then form the need that exceeds their own possibilities of realization. Since thoughts are free and may act independently of nature, under the pressure of the inconveniences caused by their own impotence and the need to overcome it, the individual forms a subjective idea about nature and the laws of movements within it to the form that suits them. If such subjective determinations overcome the obstacles in the relations with nature, which is possible since there is often no inconvenience in direct contact of the individual and the nature unknown to them, the individual relieves themselves of the inconvenient tension and accepts such determinations as real.   

The subjective vision gives the individual an illusion of power in nature, which brings quickly and easily the conveniences that are by their intensity identical to those arising from the real surpassing of the individual's impotence in nature. The transition between reality and illusion is smooth and suitable, which encourages the individual to find, in search of greater conveniences, the sources in each moment of life. One may say that "the individual who does not know," or, more exactly, an impotent individual forms during their lifetime in the unknown, superior or inconvenient nature, an indefinite number of determinations of nature; it’s parts and natural phenomena in the form that suits them. Such nature is no longer unknown because the individual "becomes familiar with it,” it is no longer superior because the individual "wins over it,” it does not belong to somebody else because the individual “annexes it.” The individual by their subjective visions adopts nature to the determinations that suit them the best. However, such determinations are alienated from their objective essence. 

Alienated determinations form in the individual an alienated conception of the conveniences and inconveniences, which creates alienated respect toward the powers in nature, alienated emotional states, alienated needs, and alienated actions. In this way, a subjective consciousness develops an alienated knowledge. Alienated knowledge is false and, therefore, forms an alienated mode of the individual's living. The alienated style of living mentally separates the individual from their nature, and thus the process develops. 

One may say that the individual alienates from their own nature when they are not able to accept the limitations of their own nature. The individual, who cannot accept their own impotence to a more significant extent, where they objectively cannot surpass such impotence, gets alienated from the objective reality to a greater degree.   

Subjectivity creates alienation. However, a subjective vision also always carries in itself objective determinations as well. Absolute subjectivity would form an absolutely alienated consciousness, and the individual as the protagonist of such consciousness would lose the possibility to exist. Absolute objectivity would build absolute naturalness, which represents an ideal of the individual's living. The relationship between objectivity and subjectivity represents the relationship between naturalness and its alienation.   

Alienated knowledge that illusorily resolves the issue of the individual's impotence before the unknown nature may find justification if it mostly contains the objective determinations of the laws of nature's movements. Such knowledge, although not real, does not have to come necessarily in direct conflict with natural powers, and releases the individual from the inconvenient tension of the relationship with the unknown.  

Alienated knowledge loses its justification when it diverts the individual from their natural track. The individual can never fully meet the alienated needs because no activity can capture the nature of the origin of such needs. Naturally, the individual cannot surpass the power of nature.   

Since alienated needs cannot accomplish satisfaction, they are as a general rule insatiable. Such alienation develops egoistic features of the character, and manifest in the form of greed, ambition, infatuation, fanaticism in the field of the individual's alienated interest. Alienated needs may objectively be entirely unnecessary to the individual's nature; however, they create in their alienated consciousness great importance. They then direct the individual to act contrary to their own nature.  

If the individual's alienated consciousness is able to find an illusory confirmation for their alienated power, the individual then develops a higher degree of subjectivism that creates a narcissistic feature of the character. Narcissism significantly represses and underestimates the objective, unknown, unacceptable reality and glorifies the alienated vision of one's own power in nature, which creates a grand illusion of living conveniences. When the individual defines, by their subjective perception, their own power far larger than the one they can objectively have, they quickly come across the contradiction in real life, which brings along strong tensions and inconveniences. Objectively, narcissistic needs are unnecessary to the individual's nature; however, in their subjective consciousness, they quickly become a precondition for ensuring existence. Such an individual invests high energy in the fight for alienated survival.  

The more the individual is alienated from their nature, the less they can, as a general rule, satisfy their needs and thus find relaxation and conveniences. Generally speaking, the alienated individual can be recognized by the fact they are almost permanently under stress, they are indeed more nervous than easy going, they are more bad-tempered than satisfied, they are more depressed than happy no matter what their active accomplishments are. The individual's nature cannot endure permanent tension and inconvenience and, therefore, their organism finds its way out in the perversion of their own senses and emotions.  

The alienated individual rids themselves of the inconvenient tension and finds illusory relaxation and conveniences in the perversion of their own nature. While the natural individual finds relaxation and conveniences in love, in a constructive attitude toward nature, the alienated individual finds illusory conveniences and relaxation in hatred and destructive attitudes toward nature. To such an individual, destruction becomes a need. The destructive tension that then appears may make the individual entirely unable to perceive the objective causes of their inconveniences.  

If the subjectivity of such an individual overestimates the conditions of nature, which bring inconveniences to them, they then find the causes of impotence in themselves, they then orient destructively towards themselves. Depending on the degree of powerlessness, the self-destructiveness acquires features that range from passivity before natural forces, even where the individual has the power to overcome them, to the need for self-destruction. The individual does not aspire to self-destruction because of objective impotence such as poverty or famine, but only if they lose the alienated form of power in nature. The individual accepts self-destructiveness as a need for escape from reality, and it can develop from, for example, the need to consume alcohol up to the entirely alienated consciousness, or lunacy. Such an individual can only in that way find relaxation from the inconvenient tension.  

If such an individual underestimates the power of nature with their subjective vision, they then find the way out from the inconveniences as well as an illusory relaxation from the tension, in a destructive attitude toward nature. The individual is never as destructive as they are when their narcissistic character, their false human greatness, gets hurt. Depending on the degree of impotence and the lack of respect toward nature, destructiveness manifests in the form of aggression that may develop toward the act of destroying nature.  

The individual who lives in harmony with their own nature overcomes their own impotence gradually and constructively. Such an individual accomplishes natural conveniences. When the individual alienates from their own nature, they cannot satisfy their needs and, therefore, tensions emerge in them that push them to destruction. The alienated individual lives a biologically inconvenient life.  

Well, the whole book is about alienation but what would that be in one sentence? Alienation is a state where an individual does not recognize values where they really are. They imagine values where they don’t exist.  The individual thinks as they feel, they feel as they live, and live as they think. Since the individual manages their thoughts by way of knowledge, since thoughts determine needs and thus direct the action, it is the individual who bears responsibility for the realization of their own sensorial and emotional states. One can say that the individual is what they think or, more precisely, that they are what they know.

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