Who is Marginal in Examples (+ Differences from Lumpen)

Ordinary people call them outcasts or homeless people. Psychologists use the terminology “marginal”. You should understand the meaning of this word, since it is not so narrow and unambiguous. Having considered examples of marginalized people, we can identify types, which is what the online magazine psytheater.com will do.

Public propaganda is the desire for implementation. Each person achieves certain successes that allow him to maintain an average social level. Having a home, family, money, friends, work and other available attributes indicates that a person is socially healthy. However, a category of people that is separated from society is considered separately. They are called marginalized. In other words, they can be called homeless. However, not only this part of people can be called marginal.

If we consider this concept more fully, we can note that some of your friends may be called marginalized.

Who is the marginalized?

Who are called marginalized? These are individuals who are excluded from all groups in society. They are on the border between groups, but are not included in any of them. This can be either a voluntary desire of the marginalized person himself, or a forced measure due to the person’s rejection by other people.

The marginalized, one might say, is excluded from society, since it does not belong to any social group. He does not belong to the family, is not a member of public organizations, is not part of the work team, etc. The most striking example of a marginalized student is a student who is not loved and hated by other students. Such a student is also called an outcast or a black sheep.

Marginality is associated with personality degradation. Anyone who strays from the “correct” path accepted in society, strays from the pack, goes in his own direction, which does not obey social laws, is called a marginalist. Citing the example of homeless people and outcasts as examples of marginalized people, people develop a clearly negative attitude towards this concept. However, not everything is so simple.

Marginalized people are not always “degraded” people who need social assistance and even psychiatrist consultations. There are categories of people who are also considered marginal, but they cannot be called unhappy. For example, emo is a subculture that promotes its lifestyle. Outwardly they may seem unhappy, but this does not mean that they are unhappy.

Marginal people are also called lumpen. However, this is a misconception. The term “lumpen” was coined by Karl Marx, who included beggars, bandits and vagabonds among them. Despite the fact that these two categories are estranged from society, they are still different castes:

1. Lumpen is a physically and morally degraded, declassed element, the “dregs” of society.
2. Marginal is a person living separately from society.

Lumpens and marginalized people do not belong to any social group, so they cannot be assigned to anyone. However, lumpen people are individuals who have sunk to the very bottom, degraded. And the marginalized are still individuals separate from society, not belonging to any group.

Modern definition

To understand the modern understanding of marginality, it is worth turning to the origins of the term. The word marginal itself comes from a Latin word. It is margo, which means edge, and marginalis means extreme. In accordance with this, we can say that the meaning of such a term implies the designation of a person living in a certain social environment, but not sharing it:

• lifestyle;
• values;
• principles;
• moral ideals;
• normal;
• worldview.

That is, marginal is asocial. The one who chose a position on the edge of the system or found himself in it against his will.

Karl Marx gave his definition of this concept. He applied this meaning to people from the lower strata of society. But he called them lumpen.

Important! So, the lumpen are now called marginalized, which is fundamentally wrong, judging by the original meaning of the terms!

In general, over time, these two concepts grew together, although initially they denoted very different social groups. We will humbly follow the crowd and continue to call the lumpen marginals, as the majority is doing now.

Meaning of the word marginal

How does sociology define the meaning of the word “marginal”? This is a person who practically does not participate or is completely excluded from any social group (economic, cultural, political). The marginal is considered excess material that needs to be looked after, monitored, and controlled. On the one hand, no one needs the marginalized. On the other hand, society cannot get rid of it due to its democratic approaches to each individual.

A marginalized person may physically be in a group, but not actually be considered a member of it. Let's remember the example of a schoolboy who is an outcast in his class. Physically, his body is in a group of other children, but his classmates do not communicate with him, are not friends, ignore him, and bully him.

The marginalized is physically in the group, but psychologically, emotionally and morally located outside of it. He is not part of it, does not participate in the creation of its biography, does not develop it, does not perform certain roles, does not adhere to its norms and rules. The presence of such a personality allows the group to understand where its boundaries end. The marginalized person himself has an objective vision of the group, he is free and can leave it at any moment, since he is not connected with it in any way.

In the classic version, a marginalized person is a person who is on the border of two groups (and not excluded from them). It is as if he is a member of two groups that, in their orientation, rules or activities, contradict each other. However, a person feels a conflict within himself, disagreement with any of the groups. He cannot make a final choice which group to join, abandoning the other. Thus, a marginalized person is a person who is part of two diverse groups, but does not ascribe himself to either of them.

Anyone can be marginalized! Here you just need to degrade, sink to the very bottom, abandon everything that is valued by society. You can become such a person if you stop striving for those heights that are considered socially significant:

1. Work to earn a lot of money.
2. Looking for a loved one to start a family with.
3. Lead a healthy lifestyle.
4. Be interested in social life and participate in it.
5. Have friends, establish connections with them.
6. Take care of your appearance and maintain hygiene.
7. Improve: develop strengths and eliminate weaknesses.
8. Study to become an educated person.

If, for example, you don’t do all of the above, you can easily become one of the marginalized. To achieve a marginal lifestyle, one only needs to abandon the progress and achievements of society, its rules and etiquette, aspirations and propaganda. You should stop being a law-abiding citizen who wants to be part of society, and start living simply your own life, setting your own rules that do not affect the interests of society.

It should be understood that a marginalized person is not always a person suffering from pathological addictions, an asocial and dysfunctional person. There are individuals who prefer solo swimming. They do not belong to any group, but may work or have a family. They create the integrity of the team, but do not participate in its development:

1. At work, a person does not communicate with anyone, but does work.
2. In a family, a person is simply listed as a member, but does not participate at all in the lives of his relatives.

The first marginalized were slaves who managed to get rid of their slave existence, but they were not able to adapt to the new conditions immediately. Thus, they were no longer classified as slaves, but they could not yet be called members of a cultural society.

A person can be given the status of “marginal” by anyone who, for one reason or another, does not accept him, condemns his way of life, or does not consider him a normal member of society. This form of “labeling” or “branding” is inherent in many cultured people who, unfortunately, are not yet fully educated, and therefore do not understand the essence of marginal life. However, if a person is truly marginalized, then he can decide for himself whether to continue to remain so or return to a social way of existence.

Signs of marginality:

• Severance of spiritual, social, economic ties in previous life.
• Mental internal problems due to inability to find one's place.
• Mobility due to lack of attachments and housing.
• Ease of involvement in illegal activities.
• Development of a personal value system.
• Hostility to social norms.

Marginalized sections of society

Analysis of the phenomenon of marginality in the absence of a unified scale of values, mass desocialization and identity crisis requires researchers to adequately assess the real state of modern Russian society. In this context, the concept of marginality acquires a qualitatively new content and needs to be clarified. The polysemantics of this word gives it a double interpretation - it can mean both a borderline state (marginality - transition) and a peripheral position (marginality - peripherality) of a social subject. Marginalism is usually viewed as a negative phenomenon that characterizes the peripheral position of the marginalized, although its destructive type is not decisive for the phenomenon as a whole, but represents only one of the forms of its manifestation in the world, along with the constructive one. Therefore, it is important not only to recognize the presence of marginalized people in the social structure of society, but also to take into account the differences within the marginalized communities themselves.

Despite the recent increased interest of various social sciences in the phenomenon being studied, it should be noted that marginality as a problem of social philosophy has not been sufficiently developed. Its objective foundations have not been revealed, the forms of its manifestation in the conditions of modern transformation processes occurring in society have been poorly studied. Moreover, the positive aspects of this phenomenon as one of the possible factors influencing the establishment of civil harmony have not been studied. The need to study these issues determines the interest in this problem.

Marginalism occupies an intermediate position, as it is at the intersection of various humanities disciplines, and therefore is often studied in fragments, which leads to its underestimation as a specific phenomenon. The socio-philosophical aspect of the study of marginality allows us to consider its objective foundations as a consequence of the eccentric nature of man; revealing the nature of this phenomenon allows us to identify the true role and place of marginality in society

In sociology, the term "marginal" refers to individuals and groups who are on the margins, on the fringes, or simply outside the main structural divisions or prevailing sociocultural norms and traditions characteristic of a given society. Marginalized people are those who have lost their social connections.

This term appeared in American sociology in the 1920s to describe the situation of immigrants who were unable to adapt to new social conditions. Since then, the concept of “marginal groups” (“marginal strata”) has found its application not only in sociology.

Marginality as a phenomenon is an inevitable accompaniment of social mobility, both vertical and horizontal. During such transitions, the loss of belonging to the old stratum can significantly outweigh the process of entering the new stratum.

A rural-to-urban migrant can serve as a role model for the marginalized. Now that he permanently lives in the city, it is difficult for him to adapt to the new rhythm of life, new orders and rules, and behavioral stereotypes. He is no longer a villager, since he lives in the city, but he is also not yet a city dweller, since he has not yet adapted to the city culture; his actions constantly reflect previously learned lifestyle norms.

Thus, the process of loss of objective membership in a certain social community, stratum, without subsequent subjective entry into a new stratum is called marginalization.

Urbanization, mass migration, the erosion of centuries-old cultural boundaries and the influence of the media on the population have led to the fact that marginal status has become the norm for millions of people in the modern world.

Types of marginalized people

Marginalized people can be divided into 4 subtypes, which are characterized by their characteristics of manifestation and the reasons for the development of such a lifestyle:

1. Ethnic. A person becomes marginalized if he leaves the ethnic group of his own nationality and begins to live in a foreign ethnic group. Problems may arise due to the need to immediately adapt to new conditions. Differences in appearance, language forms, cultural traditions and religion may not facilitate rapid adaptation. These are migrants and refugees (people who are forced to move to save their lives).
2. Economic. A person who loses his previous level of income becomes marginalized. This may be due to the loss of a job, loss of housing, a change in the economy, etc. It often happens during political and economic crises in the country.
3. Social. A person who changes social status becomes marginalized. Usually happens when trying to move into a better class of society (such as the rich and famous). However, a person does not succeed, he slides even lower or gets stuck on the border between the previous social status and the new one, not being able to get into one of them.
4. Political. A person who stops trusting government officials and the political system becomes marginalized. This happens during periods of crisis, government restructuring, etc.

What does marginal status lead to?

What specific outcome will result from a person entering an initially unrelated society depends on many factors.
In the most negative scenario, the conflict escalates to the maximum, which can have a multidirectional nature:

• internal
  - the marginalized cannot find their place, they are torn apart by contradictions,
• external
  - the marginalized person is actively attacked by others and responds with aggression.

However, flexibility, willingness to adapt, openness to new things, combined with the tolerance of the group, help the individual to bridge the gap and level out differences.
In the modern world, successful adaptation to a new culture is not uncommon. A person may experience nostalgia and retain certain rituals, but this does not prevent him from realizing himself and finding stable connections in a new environment.

Many experts in the field of sociology and psychology believe that the margins are a source of cultural growth
. He brings new trends, ideas, and views to the group. Helps community members develop, train tolerance, broaden their horizons, and look at problems from a different perspective.

Examples of marginalized people

Sociologists and psychologists consider marginalized people to be an advanced, civilized, open to everything new, developed, mobile type of personality. In other words, these are people who can objectively assess any environment and situation because they are not involved in it.

Many categories of people can be called marginalized:

1. Alcoholics and drug addicts.
2. Homeless people, tramps and beggars.
3. Bandits, sociopaths, psychopaths.
4. Downshifters are people who learn to live without the means of progress and technology.
5. Refugees and migrants.
6. Those who have lost their jobs, family, changed their place of residence, retired, served in the army or served time in prison.

Many writers and poets, brilliant minds and scientists can be called marginalized, who at one time were considered outcasts of society, since no one understood them or took them seriously. Today, we can distinguish another category of marginalized people - those who constantly spend time playing computer games. These people may be members of virtual groups, but in essence they are outcasts from society.

Bottom line

Marginality may seem like a negative quality. However, it has its advantages:

• The ability to see what society does not see.
• The ability to be detached, mobile, easy-going.
• Fearlessness, because the marginalized is not attached to anything.

The negative aspect of marginality is loneliness in the big world of people, where no one understands a person and treats him negatively. Often those around them are subject to stereotyped thinking, which is excluded in the case of the marginalized.