David Riesman (September 22, 1909 – May 10, 2002) was an American sociologist, educator, and best-selling commentator on American society.

Career

Born to a wealthy German Jewish family, he attended Harvard College, where he graduated in 1931 with a degree in biochemistry. He attended

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class i ...

, where he was a member of the '' Harvard Law Review''. Riesman clerked for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis between 1935 and 1936. He also taught at what is now the

University at Buffalo Law School The University at Buffalo School of Law (also known as State University of New York at Buffalo Law School, or SUNY Buffalo Law School) is a graduate professional school at the University at Buffalo. Founded in 1887 and affiliate with Niagara Univ ...

and at the University of Chicago. He worked for Sperry Gyroscope company during the war. After a fellowship at Yale to write ''The Lonely Crowd,'' he returned to Chicago. In 1958, he became a university professor at Harvard. He was a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

(1955) and the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

(1974). Intellectually he was influenced most by Erich Fromm, as well as Carl Friedrich,

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Leo Löwenthal Leo Löwenthal (; 3 November 1900 – 21 January 1993) was a German sociologist and philosopher usually associated with the Frankfurt School. Life Born in Frankfurt as the son of assimilated Jews (his father was a physician), Löwenthal came of ...

Robert K. Merton Robert King Merton (born Meyer Robert Schkolnick; July 4, 1910 – February 23, 2003) was an American sociologist who is considered a founding father of modern sociology, and a major contributor to the subfield of criminology. He served as th ...

Paul Lazarsfeld Paul Felix Lazarsfeld (February 13, 1901August 30, 1976) was an Austrian-American sociologist. The founder of Columbia University's Bureau of Applied Social Research, he exerted influence over the techniques and the organization of social rese ...

Paul Goodman Paul Goodman (1911–1972) was an American writer and public intellectual best known for his 1960s works of social criticism. Goodman was prolific across numerous literary genres and non-fiction topics, including the arts, civil rights, dece ...

, Martha Wolfenstein, and Nathan Leites. He widely referenced the works of Thorstein Veblen,

Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas prof ...

, and Sigmund Freud.

''The Lonely Crowd''

Horowitz says '' The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character'', in 1950

quickly became the nation’s most influential and widely read mid-century work of social and cultural criticism. It catapulted its author to the cover of ''Time'' magazine in 1954, making Riesman the first social scientist so honored.... Riesman offered a nuanced and complicated portrait of the nation’s middle and upper-middle classes.... Riesman pictured a nation in the midst of a shift from a society based on production to one fundamentally shaped by the market orientation of a consumer culture. He explored how people used consumer goods to communicate with one another.

The book is largely a study of modern conformity, which postulates the existence of the "inner-directed" and "other-directed" personalities. Riesman argued that the character of post- World War II American society impels individuals to "other-directedness," the preeminent example being modern suburbia, where individuals seek their neighbors' approval and fear being outcast from their community. That lifestyle has a coercive effect, which compels people to abandon "inner-direction" of their lives, and it induces them to take on the goals, ideology, likes, and dislikes of their community. This creates a tightly grouped crowd of people that is yet incapable of fulfilling each other's desires. The book is considered a landmark study of American character. Riesman was a major public intellectual as well as a sociologist and represented an early example of what sociologists now call "

public sociology Public sociology is a subfield of the wider sociological discipline that emphasizes expanding the disciplinary boundaries of sociology in order to engage with non-academic audiences. It is perhaps best understood as a ''style'' of sociology rath ...

"."Neil McLaughlin, ''Critical Theory Meets America'' (2001).

American higher education

In addition to his many other publications, Riesman was also a noted commentator on American higher education, publishing, with his seminal work, ''The Academic Revolution'', which was co-written with

Christopher Jencks Christopher Sandy Jencks (born October 22, 1936) is an American social scientist. Career Jencks is currently the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He graduated from Phillips E ...

. In it, Riesman sums up his position by stating, "If this book has any single message it is that the academic profession increasingly determines the character of undergraduate education in America." Riesman highlights the effects of the "logic of the research university," which focuses upon strict disciplinary research. That both sets the goals of the research university and produces its future professors. Riesman noted that the logic isolated any patterns of resistance that might challenge the university's primary purpose as disciplinary research, dashing their chances of success.

References

External links

*
Guide to the David Riesman Papers 1947-1982
at th
University of Chicago Special Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Riesman, David 1909 births 2002 deaths Anti-consumerists 20th-century American lawyers American people of German-Jewish descent Harvard Law School alumni Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States University at Buffalo faculty University of Chicago faculty Harvard University faculty Columbia University alumni William Penn Charter School alumni Harvard College alumni Members of the American Philosophical Society

Career

''The Lonely Crowd''

American higher education

See also

References

Further reading

External links