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Humanity and Nature: The Problem of Alienation

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Green Politics

Abstract

A basic question posed by the ecological crisis was, how did we get into this situation in the first place? Green theorists have seen humanity’s relationship to nature and, in particular, the condition of alienation as central to the problems facing the whole of nature. Alienation has a long history which Meszaros traced (1970, p. 28) back to the Judeo-Christian conception of being alienated from God (or having ‘fallen from Grace’). His study of Marx’s theory of alienation centred on the discovery and study of Marx’s early manuscripts of 1844. Dickens (1996, p. 56) also discussed Marx’s theory contending that this was if anything an ‘over-tight’ conceptualeization while present day usage was now rather loose.

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© 2000 James Radcliffe

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Radcliffe, J. (2000). Humanity and Nature: The Problem of Alienation. In: Green Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780333981696_3

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