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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol. 37, No. 7. April, 17 1974

Alienation

Alienation

A lot of students have no idea why feelings of frustration and discontentment abound. The university after all is really nothing more than the people in it, and to talk therefore of university as something "out there", detached and dominating, can only mean that the student feels discontentment with the social relations that the people at university have established. This feeling of alienation, from what 'should really be the fruitful and rewarding relationships with those whom one is surrounded with, finds it counterpart in other areas of university life. Subjects, for instance, are not to be enjoyed but mastered. Instead of becoming part of a student's life, they become outside of and opposed to the student, to be strenuously avoided. This can be seen in the way in which textbooks are avoided like the plague in the period November to March. As long as knowledge is to be dissected, dealt out and digested, and learning manipulated and distorted, so as to become compliant with the demands of getting a job and earning a living, such alienation is unavoidable.