Entfremdung, Verfremdung: Alienation, Estrangement

Abstract

In German one says a child is “strange” with adults it does not know, or does not know well: the child may speak little or not at all, will probably stand sucking a finger. But when children are strange in this way they are still at home within themselves, not alienated from their own lives. An adult in a wholly strange environment also may still be at home within himself; indeed, he may depend more on himself, the less a strange environment welcomes him. Alienation from oneself is something quite different, and estrangement is different again (which is what we will have to show in a roundabout way).It is easy to hear where some sounds come from. The word entfremden (“to alienate”) is an old one, originally used in business. Abalienare in Latin means to rid oneself of a thing, to sell something.