a note on riesman's the lonely crowd

8/10/2019 A Note on Riesman's the Lonely Crowd

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A Note on Riesman's The Lonely CrowdAuthor(s): Rudolf HeberleSource: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Jul., 1956), pp. 34-36Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2773802 .Accessed: 12/10/2014 15:25

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A NOTE ON RIESMAN'S THE LONELY CROWD

RUDOLF HEBERLE

ABSTRACT

Riesman's theory, relating three types of directedness to phases in the growth of population, is criti-cized, and it is suggested that other-directedness be linked to migratory mobility rather than to incipientpopulation decline.

David Riesman's three categories ofdirectedness are nearly identical with

Max Weber's types of orientation of socialaction: traditional, value rational (Ries-man's inner-directed ), and purposiverational (zweckrationacl).

Riesman's first category is precisely whatMax Weber means by traditional orienta-tion. The inner-directed person followshis moral gyroscope in the pursuit of goalswhich he perceives as valuable because hisinner voice tells him they are. The other-directed person chooses a given way ofacting because he is anxious to receive theapproval of others-this is, at least, onekind of purposive-rational conduct. Ries-man emphasizes that his concepts are con-

structs, types; that a person can be more orless inner- or other-directed (he is little con-cerned with tradition, for reasons to be dis-cussed later), and that people cannot bepigeonholed in these categories. In otherwords, his concepts are meant as idealtypes-and so are Max Weber's.

Around these concepts, Riesman builds atheory of history. In this respect, he differsfrom Weber. The latter was certainly con-cerned about the increasing rationalization

of society and culture; he was sharplyaware of the disenchantment (Entzauberung)of the world; but he did not risk the attempt,inevitably futile, of constructing periods ofhistory on the basis of psychological cate-gories.

Riesman's theorem soon gets him intotrouble, from which he tries to escape byconceding that even in our age of other-directedness there is still room for inner-directed people; that, in fact, the other-

directed personalities are still the exception,occurring most frequently in the metropoli-tan upper-middle classes, while rural andprovincial city people are still, as a rule,tradition- or inner-directed. The weakestpart of Riesman's theory is his effort tolink his three types of directedness withthe three major phases of population move-ment. In fairness, we must admit that Ries-man introduces his theorem with modestyand caution: Let me point out . . . that Iam not concerned here with making the de-tailed analysis that would be necessarybefore one could prove that a link existsbetween population phase and charactertype. '

He intends to use the curve of popula-

tion (sic) theory as a kind of shorthandfor such words as industrialism, folksociety, monopoly capitalism, urbani-zation, rationalization, and so on.2 Sinceevery one of these terms in his shorthanddenotes a different problem-complex, Ries-man might have achieved more convincingresults by discarding hem.

Despite the reservations, he believes inthe existence of a link between popula-tion phases and his character types which

detailed analysis would expose.Riesman does not specify whether thelink is of a causal nature, a functional

relationship, or whether it is merely co-incidence in time; however, his phrasingsuggests an indirect causal relationship; thesociety of transitional population growth,develops in its typical members a social

1 The Lonely Crowd (Anchor Books edition),p. 23.

2 Ibid.

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REISMAN'S THE LONELY CROWD 35

character whose conformity is insured bytheir tendency to acquire early in life aninternalized set of goals. . . the society ofincipient population decline develops in itstypical members a social character whoseconformity is insured by their tendency tobe sensitized to the expectations and prefer-ences of others. . . . How this comes about,we are not told; presumably the explanationis reserved for the detailed analysis.

A causal connection, or any kind oflink, would presuppose some degree of

co-ordination n time of the two phenomena.Riesman lets the phase of transitional

population growth in the West begin in

the seventeenth century. It would have beenmore correct to put it a hundred yearslater; in any case, the age of inner-directed-ness which we usually designate as theage of individualism was well under waysince the fifteenth century, as manifested inthe Renaissance and in the Reformation.

Riesman's phase of incipient populationdecline began about 1878-if not earlier, asin France. In other words, it began when the

inner-directed characters in the urban

upper and middle classes had their heyday.They were the very first to resort to effectiveand more or less methodical contraception.Obviously somehow Riesman's periodiza-tions do not fit the facts.

To pursue the argument further would gobeyond the scope of this note. Riesmancould, however, have linked his other-directed type to the demographic phe-nomenon of migratory mobility. He couldhave shown how migration may affect the

structureof a

societyas

wellas the system

of values and norms, i.e., the codes of con-duct.4 This we shall presently explain. Butfirst we must consider a hypothesis whichreverses Riesman's postulates, i.e., thepossibility that changes in values and atti-tudes may influence the pattern of popula-tion growth.

The rapid population increase in the

West can be regarded, in part, as madepossible by the increasing emancipationof Western man from traditionalistic codesof conduct and from the social bondsof Gemeinschaft. t is also fairly obviousthat the new attitudes of rationalism andindividualism which characterize Riesman's

inner-directed ype facilitated the adop-tion of contraceptive practices and thusinitiated the phase of incipient populationdecline.'

Less evident is the relation betweenRiesman's other-directedness and thepopulation movement. Frankly, I cannotsee how this character type could be either

the product or a causal factor of the phaseof incipient population decline, except thatthe urge to live up to the standard of livingof one's social stratum may be an importantmotive in resorting to birth control. But,on the other hand, I can see very clearly acausal connection between other-directed-ness and migratory mobility and verticalsocial mobility. We may consider first thelatter. The fear to be conspicuous Ries-man, p. 105), to appear unconventional

or old-fashioned, the strong urge toconform to certain standards of overt be-havior, the dependence or approval byone's peer group-these are very strikingcharacteristics of American middle-classpeople. It is also most likely that this

other-directedness has become more pre-dominant in recent decades, because theproportion of people who are dependentupon employment by others (the white-collar workers) has increased in themiddle classes.

This,of

course,is

true alsoof Europe where other-directedness isnot so striking.

The difference between Europe and theUnited States is probably that a muchlarger proportion of white-collar workersin the United States has risen sociallyfrom the classes of manual workers, in-cluding farmers, and are newcomers tourban middle-class society. Feeling inse-cure, like most newcomers, hey are anxious

3 Ibid.4 R. Heberle, Uber die Mobilitdt der Bevilkerung

in den Vereinigten Staaten (Jena: G. Fischer Verlag,1929).

5 R. Heberle, Social Factors of Birth Control,American Sociological Review, IX (1941), 794-805.



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36 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

to conform and in the desire to rise further,or to see their children rise, they increasetheir efforts.

Migration and migratory mobility areother factors. They probably have muchgreater weight in the United States than inEurope. There can be no doubt about theextremely high migratory mobility amongmiddle-class people in the United States.Even the sample reports of the UnitedStates Bureau of the Census, which by nomeans cover all migratory movements,show an astounding frequency of movingbetween one community and another.

The relation between migratory mobilityand conformity due to other-directednesscan be arrived at by theoretical reasoning.Let us compare a society in which peopletend to stay for generations in the samecommunity or region with one in whichthey move frequently in their own lifetimeand their migrations cover large distances.In the latter society, a large proportionin each community will be newcomers,

strangers (Simmel) to each other. Onedoes not know from what kind of familyone's neighbors or one's colleagues come,or to what social class their parents be-longed, or what they themselves have done

in the past. They cannot be placed in afamiliar social category except by observingand evaluating their manifest conduct or

overt behavior. No wonder, then, thatunder these conditions everybody desiresto appear at his best and to win the ap-proval of others by conforming to the ob-servable standards.

In a society with low migratory mobility,people are known to one another for longerperiods of time and not only as individualsbut also as members of kinship groups andof social sets with local prestige and estab-lished reputations. Their idiosyncrasies

and eccentricities are known and oftentaken for granted. The pressure to conformis not as strong as in a society of high migra-tory mobility. This applies especially tomembers of the prominent families whocan afford to engage in a certain measureof non-conformist conduct without damageto their prestige. In the United States wefind approximations of this society in NewEngland and in the Deep South, and it ishere, according to literary sources and myown observation, that pressure for con-formity in the upper middle classes is not byfar as strong as, for example, in the MiddleWest.

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY


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