The lonely crowd

The hypothesis is that changes in population and technology everywhere are the chief correlates of changes in the social character. We have, in past generations, accepted conformity with adult authority, while member of modern society, today, is by contrast more the product of his peers, his friends at school or in neighborhood.

Growing up he continues to identify with the same group values, not only conforming as do people in all times and places, but also in a deeper sense, in his aspirations and in the making of his world view. However, he doesnt come closer to others reflecting the loner in the crowd, because he is disinterested in affairs other than those yield imminent benefice. He keeps the distance by leaving the option open for disengagement, and for the ease of ignorance. İn the past he may have been alone too but then, he was identified strongly with his family, whom he had internalized within, an inseperable support, being with him at all times.

Nevertheless, there lies the space for autonomy beyond adjustment to the prevailing mode of conformity, beyond obedience to or fascination by the peers. Autonomy in his social role is in reach, but it is never all of character. With the change in social character from inner to other new problems arise, since in the age of consumption, when one is inspired only by his gadgets, he no longer so easily find autonomy to make a living. Before he could remain uninvolved in the lacks of others in the custody of his family. He had a large measure of confidence in what ever pattern of sociability and consumption he chose. His right to play was supported and limited as well by his class position and his power to assume himself of moral and physical privacy. But yesterday's escape and protections are closed to many today. One may not be able to rescue himself either from the peer groups or the prevailing advocates, all by himself, and may sink in these meanings. This is due to the assumption that if we widen the social space within which a person can move we may only induce abnormal dread of being in overtly open space. Terrifying images and contacts with future opportunities vanish only through some guides and signals, which illuminate the path, more often through institutional channels.


David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd, Yale Univ. Press, 1950

David M. Potter, People of Plenty, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1973

David Nye, Narration and Spaces, Columbia Univ. Press, NY. 2003