Doi: 10. 17516/1997-1370-0640 Socio-Cultural Determinacy of Human Loneliness

Loneliness as a result
of the lost balance between
the variables of K. Marx’s formula
The necessity for a person to constantly 
create conditions for his own life support (so-
cial, cultural, technical, etc.) in the process of 
object-oriented activity presupposes going be-
yond himself (fulfillment of his essence outside 
himself). The product produced by a person in 
the course of object-oriented activity and serv-
ing as a proof of the assertion of his essence 
allows not only to overcome his uniqueness, 
but also to consider him as a historical being 
(K. Marx) It is this moment that becomes the 
starting point of the Meeting of the Self and 
the Significant Other, giving rise to a common 
value-semantic world that they accept, through 
which not only the Self and the Other turn out 
to be significant for each other, but the content 
of this world around which they unite also ac-
quires significance for each one of them.
Essential components of conscious trans-
formational activity, which include culturally 
significant values and meanings, become an 
internal property of the person himself, in-
separable from his being. Therefore, even the 
outcomes of spiritual activity must receive ap-
proval by the Other. By legitimising the pro-
cesses and results of material, practical and 
spiritual exploration of nature through involve-
ment, the Other himself acquires significance 
for the Self.
Herewith, on the one hand, nature is the 
subject of human activity to satisfy his needs, 
affirming his life, on the other hand, it turns 
into objectivity, man’s other being, becoming 
the internal content of socio-cultural processes, 
thereby ensuring the stability of connections 
and relationships between participants in ob-
ject-oriented activities. Being the basis of con-
nections between individuals nature acquires 
a certain value and significance in them and 
through them. Let us clarify this idea. Nature 
turns out to be a value for a person not as it is, 
but being mediated by the socio-cultural con-
text, as a carrier of the function of connecting it 
with other people (Marx, 1956: 589-590). Con-
sequently, the relationship between man and 
man in the process of transformative activity, 
which determines his attitude to nature, and 
hence his involvement in interhuman relations, 
can be recognised as the main semantic com-
ponent of his inherent internal value-semantic 
world. For example, if utilitarian-pragmatic re-
lations prevail in society, which is a clear indi-
cator of a low level of development of spiritual 
culture, then, accordingly, people will consider 
nature only as something external, as an object 
of exploitation, and not as the direct basis of 
their own life and activities. The fact of the 
mass enslavement of people by the processes 
of externalisation (when a person stops saying 
You and establishing a dialogue with nature) 
was noted by M. Buber, who eventually came 
to the disappointing conclusion about the uni-
versal cosmic homelessness of man (‘unparal-
leled loneliness’) (Buber, 1995: 38 ). 
Therefore, socio-economic structure of so-
ciety, alienating from individuals, “rises above 
them” and becomes alienated acquiring “an 
independent existence of social reality” (Ka-

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– 1272 –
Igor A. Belyaev and Maksim N. Lyashchenko. Socio-Cultural Determinacy of Human Loneliness
gan, 1988: 138). It makes sense to talk about 
the phenomenon of ‘institutional alienation’, in 
the presence of which impersonal social struc-
tures become full subjects of social activity. In 
this case, the personal component takes over 
the spiritual one in human integrity, complete-
ly subjugating the human nature, embodying 
the prevailing conditions of current social ex-
istence, limited by the present, localized out-
side the past and future. In other words, there 
is a deformation of the highest level of integrity 
of the person himself, decreasing the ‘degree’ 
of the spiritual and moral component, which 
makes it impossible for him to go beyond the 
established system of inter-human relations. 
To some extent, he himself becomes a tool for 
the existing social structures. As a result, the 
human world becomes alienated and hostile to 
man, while relations between people lose their 
truly human nature, and the man himself turns 
into an alienated and lonely being.