MODERN FORMS OF ALIENATION IN HIGH-COMPLEXITY ENVIRONMENTS - A SYSTEMS-APPROACH

Alienation will be viewed as a generic term for different kinds of information-processing problems in human individuals, viewed as autopoietic, variable-boundary systems. Applying general systems theory (GST), especially second-order cybernetics, to alienation theory not only results in a reconceptualisation and increased mutual comparability of existing (e.g. Marxist and psychoanalytic) theories of alienation, but also presents a rationale for subsuming several typical, modern, "information-overload" problems in Western societies under the rubic of alienation theory. Such problems include those of selection and scanning, assimilation, flexibility, overchoice, and self-realisation or self-actualisation - problems which typically occur in complex and fast-changing environments.