The Lonely Crowd is a 1950
sociologicalSociology is the scientific or systematic study of human societies. It is a branch of social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, often with the goal of applying such...
analysis by
David RiesmanDavid Riesman , was a United States sociologist, attorney, and educator....
,
Nathan GlazerNathan Glazer is an American sociologist, who taught at UC Berkeley and Harvard University. He is a domestic policy neoconservative, editor of the defunct policy journal The Public Interest, and formerly a frequent contributor to The New Republic...
, and
Reuel DenneyReuel Denney was an American poet and academic. He studied at Dartmouth College and taught at the University of Chicago and the University of Hawaii. With David Reisman and Nathan Glazer, he authored The Lonely Crowd , a classic of American sociology.-External links:*...
. It is considered -- along with
White Collar: The American Middle ClassesWhite Collar: The American Middle Classes is a study of the American middle class by sociologist C. Wright Mills, first published in 1951. It describes the forming of a "new class": the white-collar workers. It is also a major study of social alienation in the modern industrialized world and...
, written by Riesman's friend and colleague
C. Wright MillsCharles Wright Mills was an American sociologist. Mills is best remembered for his 1959 book The Sociological Imagination in which he lays out a view of the proper relationship between biography and history, theory and method in sociological scholarship...
-- to be a landmark study of American
characterA character structure is a system of relatively permanent motivational and other traits that are manifested in the specific ways that an individual relates and reacts to others, to various kinds of stimuli, and the environment that will most likely bring about a normal or productive character...
.
Riesman, et al. identify and analyze three main cultural types: tradition-directed, inner-directed, and outer-directed. They trace the evolution of society from a tradition-directed culture -- one that moved in a direction defined by preceding generations.
The Lonely Crowd is a 1950
sociologicalSociology is the scientific or systematic study of human societies. It is a branch of social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, often with the goal of applying such...
analysis by
David RiesmanDavid Riesman , was a United States sociologist, attorney, and educator....
,
Nathan GlazerNathan Glazer is an American sociologist, who taught at UC Berkeley and Harvard University. He is a domestic policy neoconservative, editor of the defunct policy journal The Public Interest, and formerly a frequent contributor to The New Republic...
, and
Reuel DenneyReuel Denney was an American poet and academic. He studied at Dartmouth College and taught at the University of Chicago and the University of Hawaii. With David Reisman and Nathan Glazer, he authored The Lonely Crowd , a classic of American sociology.-External links:*...
. It is considered -- along with
White Collar: The American Middle ClassesWhite Collar: The American Middle Classes is a study of the American middle class by sociologist C. Wright Mills, first published in 1951. It describes the forming of a "new class": the white-collar workers. It is also a major study of social alienation in the modern industrialized world and...
, written by Riesman's friend and colleague
C. Wright MillsCharles Wright Mills was an American sociologist. Mills is best remembered for his 1959 book The Sociological Imagination in which he lays out a view of the proper relationship between biography and history, theory and method in sociological scholarship...
-- to be a landmark study of American
characterA character structure is a system of relatively permanent motivational and other traits that are manifested in the specific ways that an individual relates and reacts to others, to various kinds of stimuli, and the environment that will most likely bring about a normal or productive character...
.
Description
Riesman, et al. identify and analyze three main cultural types: tradition-directed, inner-directed, and outer-directed. They trace the evolution of society from a tradition-directed culture -- one that moved in a direction defined by preceding generations. Tradition-directed social types obeyed rules established a long time in the past, and rarely succeeded in modern society, with its dynamic changes.
This earliest social type was succeeded by people who were inner-directed. They discovered the potential within themselves to live and act not according to established norms, but based on what they discovered using their own inner
gyroscopeA gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of angular momentum. A mechanical gyroscope is essentially a spinning wheel or disk whose axle is free to take any orientation...
. Inner-directed people live as adults what they learned in childhood, and tend to be confident, sometimes rigid.
After the
Industrial RevolutionThe Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, and transport had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions in the United Kingdom. The changes subsequently spread throughout Europe, North...
in America had succeeded in developing a middle-class state, institutions that had flourished within the tradition-directed and the inner-directed social framework became secondary to daily life. Instead of living according to traditions, or conforming to the values of organized religion, the family, or societal codes, the new middle class gradually adopted a malleability in the way people lived with each other. The increasing ability to consume goods and afford material abundance was accompanied by a shift away from tradition or inner-directedness. How to define one's self became a function of the way others lived.
Gradually an outer-direction took hold, that is, the social forces of how others were living -what they consumed, what they did with their time, what their views were toward politics, work, play, and so on. Riesman and his researchers found that other-directed people were flexible and willing to accommodate others to gain approval. Because large organizations preferred this type of personality, it became indispensable to the institutions that thrived with the growth of industry in America.
As Riesman wrote, "The other-directed person wants to be loved rather than esteemed", not necessarily to control others but to relate to them. Those who are other-directed need assurance that they are emotionally in tune with others.
By the 1940s, the other-directed character was beginning to dominate society. Today the triumph of this type of social personality is complete. If one applies the outer-direction criteria to everyday actors as portrayed in modern culture, for example,
Death of a SalesmanDeath of a Salesman is a 1949 play by American playwright Arthur Miller and is a classic of American theater. The play ran for 742 performances, winning both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The original production was directed by Elia Kazan with Lee J...
or
How to Succeed in Business Without Really TryingHow to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert, based on Shepherd Mead's 1952 book of the same name....
, or the classic
How to Win Friends and Influence PeopleHow to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the first bestselling self-help books ever published. Written by Dale Carnegie and first published in 1936, it has sold 15 million copies globally....
, the other-directed person is easy to identify.
This defined the
middle classThe middle class are any class in the middle of a social schema. In Weberian socio-economic terms they are the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socioeconomically between the working class and upper class. In Marxist terms, middle class commonly refers to either the...
that no longer had the material need to cling to past life standards to form a cohesive society. But since the other-directed could only identify themselves through references to others in their communities (and what they earned, owned, consumed, believed in) they inherently were restricted in their ability to know themselves.
Riesman's book argues that although other-directed individuals are crucial for the smooth functioning of the modern organization, the value of autonomy is compromised.
The Lonely Crowd also argues that society dominated by the other-directed faces has profound deficiencies in leadership, individual self-knowledge, and human potential.
Riesman and his co-authors (Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney) did not come up with the title; the publisher did.