Montemar and Balane 1

Clyde Patrick R. Montemar

Charisse Yvonne O. Balane

Professor Chloe Nicole D. Piamonte

Introduction to Philosophy of the Human Person

November 26, 2021
Estranged Gears and Cogs
Working to live and living to work. We’ve encountered those words for a thousand times
in our society and it became an engraved thought in the minds of people — life’s purpose is to
work, and work’s purpose is to sustain life. Karl Marx believed that work, at its best, is what makes
us human: fulfilling our 'species essence' where work allows us to live, to be creative, to flourish.
However, at the same time, work is where alienation thrives the most. Alienation is the
estrangement of self from the aspects of their human nature. Living in this world, our priority is to
survive and in survival requires the condition of resources and to obtain resources is to produce
where in production the occurrence of destruction and exploitation is inevitable. Karl Marx’s
theory of alienation exhibits that the relation of self-other is detrimental when a human being is
objectified that is imperative to survival which estranges man to his own reality.
Revolving around alienation, this concept of self-other relations greatly depicts the
capitalistic dystopian world that we have where human persons are deprived of their own hard
work — not just a subjective state of mind but an objective process that marks our own survival.
In the Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, human persons are alienated from their own
product, in the act of production, in their ‘species-essence’, and other man. This alienation
fundamentally leaves the human person like an empty shell of moss, objectified as a mechanistic
part of this society that we live in. All of this happened with the functions of intersubjectivity here
every self-estrangement of man from himself, and nature is manifested in the relationship he sets
up between other men and himself and nature. It is our very own autonomy that left us estranged,
our subjectivity that is embedded in our work to live: forced by the necessity of subsistence and
exploited by the greed of the other.
Admitting the painful truth of our society, I agree with Karl Marx’s philosophy on self-
other relations that indicates alienation as its principal concept. It is evident with the current
situation of our society in a socioeconomic perspective where most people are committing their
life to work without even realizing that they are objectified where the more the worker exerts
himself in his work, the more powerful the alien, objective world becomes which he brings into
being over against himself, the poorer he and his inner world become, and the less they belong to
him. Consuming the essence of a human person with the continuous alienation and exploitation,
being trapped with tedium, apathy and exhaustion leaving them like a starving beast that only
wants its survival. The alienation of oneself cripples the human person — “does not develop freely
his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind”. Losing empathy and
the integration of reason in this dehumanizing conditions.
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This alienation is still continuously happening in our society. In a news report of Rappler,
health workers during the coronavirus outbreak are underpaid, overworked, and unappreciated.
This shows the types of alienation where the health workers are estranged from their own labor,
not able to contribute to the act of production but is restricted, losing their species-essence from
the fatigue and stress, and creates turmoil with other workers. The theory of alienation is still
applied even at the very people who are the only one that can save us in this pandemic. At the very
start of our education, we are trained to be workers that will contribute to our society towards
sustaining our own necessities. An inevitable painful process for most people especially for those
at the edge of our society.
Each and everyone have their own purpose to be served even with the detrimental effects
of alienation established from having self-other relations in the verge of survival. Alienation is
destructive but at the same time sustains us. All of us are neither victim in this game of life. All
that we can do is to be kind and always apply empathy and reason in all that we do. Making this
world a better place for everyone. Our existence will always revolve in this estrangement; the
world’s a machine and we’re merely gears and cogs.
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Works Cited

Marx, Karl. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Translated by Martin Milligan,
Dover Publications, 2007.

“Karl Marx on Alienated Labour.” Libcom.Org, libcom.org/library/karl-marx-alienated-labour.

Accessed 26 Nov. 2021.

Tomacruz, Sofia, and Aika Rey. “‘Underpaid, Overworked, Unappreciated:’ PH Deployment

Ban Scars Nurses during Pandemic.” Rappler, 3 Aug. 2020,

www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/philippines-deployment-ban-scars-nurses-

coronavirus-pandemic.

Armando. “Marx’s Conception of Alienation - Demoskratia.” Medium, 12 May 2018,

demoskratia.org/marxs-conception-of-alienation-7e9d47b78220.

“Alienation (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Plato.Stanford.Edu,

plato.stanford.edu/entries/alienation/#Bib.

Marx, Karl, and Erich Fromm. Marx's Concept of Man. New York: F. Ungar Pub. Co, 1961.
Print.

Marx, Karl, 1818-1883. Alienated Labor. Private Property and Communism. Critique of the
Hegelian Dialectic. Three Essays Selected from the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts.
[Place of publication not identified],[publisher not identified], 1947.
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