Mirror Sites:
CSUDH - Habermas - UWP - Archives

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: June 20, 2004
Reviewed:
Latest Update: June 20, 2004
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

The Anomie of Isolation

A Sense of Being Alone

In almost all cases of difference to be different is to be isolated, alone. Either as an individual, or as a group. This means that one of the first requirements to find the strength to make one's validity claims and to stand firmly in the position that each human has that right is to discover that there is support for our claim. That support often comes in the discovery that we are not alone, that there is hardly any status or condition under the sun that any one of us can claim as exclusive. We are not alone. Exclusion visits each of us. By recognizing the feelings we share when we are treated as outsiders, excluded, we can find the support we need to discover and nurture our individual voices.

In this section we explore the hearing of difference, how we learn to hear it, how we manage to be heard.

Notes:

• Anomie, definition
• Durkheim, graphs of anomie and of altruistic isolation.
• Young, black, and successful . . . and dead
• Don't we all bleed the same?
• Attitude and persuasion theory and initiations - the harder the initiation the more loyalty to the group afterward. File on death during initiation. But clearly shows the importance of exclusion to the dominant group. Jones and Gerard, Foundations of Social Psychology.

These are all in files on the site. Up soon. jeanne