Abstract
This paper forms part of a larger study on the applicability of GST to alienation theory, where alienation is viewed as a generic term covering various kinds of information processing disturbances of individuals. Alienation is increasingly becoming an important subject of theoretical and empirical research in the social sciences. Since it is, in many ways, related to the specific structure of modern societies, our discussion will focus on a specific type of interpersonal alienation, originating especially in modern environments—between persons who need not be alienated themselves. To place this discussion in its proper perspective, however, a concise summary of a general systems approach to alienation theory will first be presented.
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References
Melvin Seeman, “On the Meaning of Alienation,” American Sociological Review, 24, No. 6, December 1959, pp. 783–791.
Felix Geyer, “Alienation and General Systems Theory,” Sociologia Neerlandica, 10, No. 1, May 1974, pp. 18–41.
Felix Geyer, “General Systems Theory and the Growth of the Individual’s Inner Complexity as a Function of Time.” In: Modern Trends in Cybernetics and Systems, edited by J. Rose, Editura Tehnica, Bucharest, pp. 32–50, 1977.
Felix Geyer, “Alienation and Stress: A Review of their Modern Forms from the Perspective of General Systems Theory.” In: Systems Thinking and the Quality of Life, edited by Clair K. Blong, Society for General Systems Research, Washington, pp. 72–83, 1975.
Felix Geyer, “Individual Alienation and Information Processing: A Systems Theoretical Conceptualization.” In: Theories of Alienation — Critical Perspectives in Philosophy and the Social Sciences, edited by F. Geyer and D. Schweitzer, Martinus Nijhof, The Hague, pp. 189–223, 1976.
The world outside the system can be divided into: an interaction environment (which one gives outputs to, and receives inputs from); an input environment (which one receives inputs from, without being able to emit effective outputs in return—e.g. a complex bureaucracy); -an output environment (which one gives outputs to, without obtaining effective feedback through inputs—e.g., in many cases, the audience of an author or actor); -a latent environment (a rest category, including all those unknown aspects of one’s environment one neither gives outputs to, nor receives inputs from at any given moment).
Niklas Luhmann, Zweckbegriff und Systemrationalität, Mohr, Tübingen, 1968 and Niklas Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung, 2nd ed., Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1971.
In our conceptualization, geared towards the explanation of alienation, defense mechanisms can be viewed as subsystems that imply new ways of coding in those cases, where continuing the old way of coding would lead to anti-survival behavior of the individual concerned. It should be noted that in psychiatry, defense mechanisms are generally defined in a retrospective way, stressing their negative effects in the present rather than their presumably positive effects at the time of their construction: a perhaps once survival-relevant and new way of coding has never been altered, while environmental (and perhaps also intrasystemic) change has made it dysfunctional for the individual’s behavior in the present.
Herbert A. Simon, “The Organization of Complex Systems.” In: Hierarchy Theory, edited by H. H. Pattee, Braziller, New York, pp. 3–27, 1973.
“Effect-testing” gives perhaps a better idea of what goes on than “reality testing,” which suggests the existence of an objective, immutable external reality. It should be clear that, in our opinion, everyone makes his own mental constructions of his external environment, and the only thing one can do in reality testing is to sharpen one’s hypotheses toward greater predictability of environmental reactions. Nevertheless, we will continue to use the term “reality testing” in line with general usage.
Which of the two depends on whether H views L’s low internal complexity as mainly due to his state functions or to his decisional functions.
The complete text can be obtained from the author, R. F. Geyer, SISWO, O. Z. Achterburgwal 128, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The world outside the system can be conceptualized, independently of the categorization proposed in Ref. 6, in the following way: -natural environment: the non-human environment, insofar as not produced by human activity; -direct-interpersonal environment: all those with whom one has face-to-face contact on a regular and diffuse (instead of functionally-specific) basis; -indirect-interpersonal environment: all those with whom contacts are either face-to-face, but shortlived and functionally-specific, or non-face-to-face; -societal environment: the man-produced non-human environment, including symbolic communications, large-scale institutions and processes, etc.
Albert B. Cherns, “Work of Life.” In: Theories of Alienation, op. cit., p. 237.
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Geyer, F. (1978). Two Separate Realities: Dyadic Communication Problems Resulting from Interpersonal Differences in Internal Complexity. In: Klir, G.J. (eds) Applied General Systems Research. NATO Conference Series, vol 5. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-0555-3_67
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