ABSTRACT
Let me begin with a provisional view, if not a definition, of what it means to be human, at least for the purposes of this analysis. To be human is to have control, to have power, over one’s life; including the social settings in which one finds oneself. The thinking of Michel de Certeau (1984) is important here, especially the view that actors are poets or their own affairs and trailblazers in formally rational systems. In a more negative sense this chapter is rooted in Max Weber’s ([1921] 1968) work on dehumanization, especially as it is caused by rationalized structures, as well as Karl Marx’s ([1867] 1967) view that the structures of capitalism serve to destroy the natural interconnectedness that characterizes humans fully able to be dehumanized. The issue of concern here is whether it is possible for people to express their species being. Humanization and dehumanization constitute a continuum. No one is totally in control or totally controlled; totally humanized or become more fully human, to be less controlled by larger structures, especially in contemporary consumer society.
