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The Fall of Public Man
A landmark study of urban society, reissued for the 40th anniversary of the original publication with a new epilogue by the author. A sweeping, farsighted study of the changing nature of public culture and urban society, The Fall of Public Man spans more than two centuries of Western sociopolitical evolution and investigates the causes of our declining involvement in political life. Richard Sennett’s insights into the danger of the cult of individualism remain thoroughly relevant to our world today. In a new epilogue, he extends his analysis to the new “public” realm of social media, questioning how public culture has fared since the digital revolution.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
158 people are currently reading
5344 people want to read
About the author
Richard Sennett
72 books550 followersRichard Sennett has explored how individuals and groups make social and cultural sense of material facts -- about the cities in which they live and about the labour they do. He focuses on how people can become competent interpreters of their own experience, despite the obstacles society may put in their way. His research entails ethnography, history, and social theory. As a social analyst, Mr. Sennett continues the pragmatist tradition begun by William James and John Dewey.
His first book, The Uses of Disorder, [1970] looked at how personal identity takes form in the modern city. He then studied how working-class identities are shaped in modern society, in The Hidden Injuries of Class, written with Jonathan Cobb. [1972] A study of the public realm of cities, The Fall of Public Man, appeared in 1977; at the end of this decade of writing, Mr. Sennett sought to account the philosophic implications of this work in Authority [1980].
At this point he took a break from sociology, composing three novels: The Frog who Dared to Croak [1982], An Evening of Brahms [1984] and Palais Royal [1987]. He then returned to urban studies with two books, The Conscience of the Eye, [1990], a work focusing on urban design, and Flesh and Stone [1992], a general historical study of how bodily experience has been shaped by the evolution of cities.
In the mid 1990s, as the work-world of modern capitalism began to alter quickly and radically, Mr. Sennett began a project charting its personal consequences for workers, a project which has carried him up to the present day. The first of these studies, The Corrosion of Character, [1998] is an ethnographic account of how middle-level employees make sense of the “new economy.” The second in the series, Respect in a World of Inequality, [2002} charts the effects of new ways of working on the welfare state; a third, The Culture of the New Capitalism, [2006] provides an over-view of change. Most recently, Mr. Sennett has explored more positive aspects of labor in The Craftsman [2008], and in Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation [2012].
His first book, The Uses of Disorder, [1970] looked at how personal identity takes form in the modern city. He then studied how working-class identities are shaped in modern society, in The Hidden Injuries of Class, written with Jonathan Cobb. [1972] A study of the public realm of cities, The Fall of Public Man, appeared in 1977; at the end of this decade of writing, Mr. Sennett sought to account the philosophic implications of this work in Authority [1980].
At this point he took a break from sociology, composing three novels: The Frog who Dared to Croak [1982], An Evening of Brahms [1984] and Palais Royal [1987]. He then returned to urban studies with two books, The Conscience of the Eye, [1990], a work focusing on urban design, and Flesh and Stone [1992], a general historical study of how bodily experience has been shaped by the evolution of cities.
In the mid 1990s, as the work-world of modern capitalism began to alter quickly and radically, Mr. Sennett began a project charting its personal consequences for workers, a project which has carried him up to the present day. The first of these studies, The Corrosion of Character, [1998] is an ethnographic account of how middle-level employees make sense of the “new economy.” The second in the series, Respect in a World of Inequality, [2002} charts the effects of new ways of working on the welfare state; a third, The Culture of the New Capitalism, [2006] provides an over-view of change. Most recently, Mr. Sennett has explored more positive aspects of labor in The Craftsman [2008], and in Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation [2012].
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January 6, 2024
The "Fall of Public Man" was first published in 1979 and quickly became a classic among the sociological literature on the public sphere. The book's stated aim is to retrace the shifting balance between private and public experience since the birth of modernity in the 18th century.
In the course of this investigation, Sennett covers a lot of ground. He discusses street life in the 18th and 19th century, the evolution of audience behaviour in the theatre, fashion developments, the rise of the department store, Lamartine's oratory skills and Zola's intervention during the Dreyfus affair - to name just a few of a topics dealt with in the course of this book.
Despite the breadth of the analysis, the thesis Sennett puts forward can fairly easy be summarised. According to the author, there existed a delicate balance between private and public life at the start of modernity. In the 18th century the so-called "res publica" were discussed in an impersonal manner, in terms of collective group interests, trade-offs between different objectives, etc. Next to that, there existed a private sphere in which one could control the company one interacted with and which, therefore, allowed for more expressive interactions which revealed one's inner nature. This balance between the personal and impersonal, according to Sennett, has tilted all the way towards the so-called "tyrannies of intimacy". In contemporary society, Sennet bemoans, the public sphere has gradually eroded. When discussing public policy, we no longer discuss trade-offs or group interests but have instead become obsessed with the personality of our politicians. As Sennett himself puts it in the opening pages of the book "we may understand that a politician's job is to draft or execute legislation, but that work does not interest us until we perceive the play of personality in political struggle. A political leader running for office is spoken of as "credible" or "legitimate" in terms of what kind of man he is, rather than in terms of the actions or programs he espouses." (p. 4). Or elsewhere: "In modern politics, it would be suicide for a leader to insist: Forget about my private life, all you need to know about me is how good a legislator or executive I am and what action I intend to take in office." (p. 25)
Admittedly, in today's context, Sennett's thesis sounds familiar and even slightly unoriginal. It is indeed a common complaint nowadays that the media focus too much on the fight between political personalities rather than on the differences between political opponents' policy proposals or voting records. However, one has to bear in mind that at the end of the 1970s, most so-called "progressive" sociologists or political philosophers focused exactly on the opposite tendency of modern society, namely to favour impersonal interactions in the economic, political or legal spheres at the expense of authentic personal connections. Two years after the publication of "The Fall of Public Man", in Theory of Communicative Action, Jürgen Habermas will summarise this wide-spread critique of modernity by referring to "the colonisation of the lifeworld" by the instrumental rationality of bureaucracies and market forces. Against this background, Sennett's contribution to the sociology of modernity appears to be more original than it may seem to the contemporary reader.
The question remains, however, whether the "Fall of Public Man" offers a compelling narrative of modernity. I must confess that I myself am not totally convinced. In my view, the book suffers from three major flaws.
The first has to do with the investigative method underpinning Sennett's narrative. The author rightly stresses that in qualitative historical studies like his own, one necessarily has to be selective in terms of the evidence examined. As it is impossible to exhaust all of it, he prefers a method referred to in the opening pages of the book as "potholing." His story mainly focuses on the interplay between public and private life in Paris and London in the 1750s, the 1840s and the 1890s. By focusing on these three decades, he tries to "depict the sweep of historical forces and at the same time some of the richness of detail which comes from delving into a specific moment" (p. 42). From the perspective of Sennett, this investigative method may not allow him to "proof" that things happened the way he suggests they happened, but it should allow him to construe a "plausible" narrative as "plausibility is a matter of showing the logical connections among phenomena which can be described concretely."
I agree with the author that this is a fair standard by which to judge empirical social studies like his own. However, I find that he does not fully meet the standard he sets out for itself. The "logical connections" he establishes between the various elements of his story simply are not always fully convincing. Thus, for example, Sennett suggests that "mass-production of clothes, and the use of mass-production patterns (...) meant that many diverse segments of the cosmopolitan public began in gross to take on a similar appearance (...)." As a result, according to Sennett "the stranger [became] more intractably a mystery." (p. 20) I cannot say I totally buy into this "logical connection" which glosses over the fact that even in a society where clothing is mass produced, it is by no means more difficult than before to guess one's social class by their appearance. As any reader of 19th century literature will know, all it takes is attention to specific, small but by no means totally hidden, markers. Other explanatory factors invoked by Sennett also remain somewhat obscure. Thus, for example, he points to "secularism" as one of the main drivers behind the Victorian notion that "appearances in public, no matter how mystifying, still had to be taken seriously, because they might be clues to the person hidden behind the mask." (p. 21) Even after multiple readings of the passages in the book which try to link the two phenomena, I must admit I still fail to fully grasp the connection.
A second flaw is related to the way in which Sennett deals with the historical material he refers to to underpin his main thesis. While one has to admire the breadth of his investigation, in terms of depth, I found his analyses to frequently leave wanting. More often than not, the author refers to a work of fiction, a historical practice, a cultural phenomenon merely to make a point. Rare are those cases, however, where the works, the practices or the phenomena are analysed in and for themselves. The references to Lamartine's oratory are maybe the most striking but surely not the only examples of this weakness. The French romantic revolutionary is depicted by Sennett as a truly remarkable man who could capture the crowd's imagination to the point where it became subdued, passive and respectful. Sennett quotes a few testimonies of contemporaries that indeed underline the captivating effect of Lamartine's rhetoric but leaves the reader guessing as to what exactly was so special about it since the poet's speeches are not analysed at all (pp. 227-237). The same unfortunately applies to quite a few of the pivotal works referred to in The Fall of Public Man.
Finally, I also found Sennett's account of how modern society reorganised the interplay between the private and the public realm to be too one-sided. As indicated above, there are plenty of well-argued alternative genealogies of modernity around which underscore the way in which the personal sphere of the lifeworld has become increasingly colonised by the impersonal technical rationality which finds its roots in the political, scientific and/or economic spheres.
It is a shame Sennett does not engage with this literature more extensively as it would have allowed him to arrive at a more nuanced picture of modern society as a functionally differentiated system in which personal and impersonal communication systems coexist in each other's respective environments. Maybe that would be too much to ask for, however, as Sennett is Sennett and not Luhmann... :-)
In the course of this investigation, Sennett covers a lot of ground. He discusses street life in the 18th and 19th century, the evolution of audience behaviour in the theatre, fashion developments, the rise of the department store, Lamartine's oratory skills and Zola's intervention during the Dreyfus affair - to name just a few of a topics dealt with in the course of this book.
Despite the breadth of the analysis, the thesis Sennett puts forward can fairly easy be summarised. According to the author, there existed a delicate balance between private and public life at the start of modernity. In the 18th century the so-called "res publica" were discussed in an impersonal manner, in terms of collective group interests, trade-offs between different objectives, etc. Next to that, there existed a private sphere in which one could control the company one interacted with and which, therefore, allowed for more expressive interactions which revealed one's inner nature. This balance between the personal and impersonal, according to Sennett, has tilted all the way towards the so-called "tyrannies of intimacy". In contemporary society, Sennet bemoans, the public sphere has gradually eroded. When discussing public policy, we no longer discuss trade-offs or group interests but have instead become obsessed with the personality of our politicians. As Sennett himself puts it in the opening pages of the book "we may understand that a politician's job is to draft or execute legislation, but that work does not interest us until we perceive the play of personality in political struggle. A political leader running for office is spoken of as "credible" or "legitimate" in terms of what kind of man he is, rather than in terms of the actions or programs he espouses." (p. 4). Or elsewhere: "In modern politics, it would be suicide for a leader to insist: Forget about my private life, all you need to know about me is how good a legislator or executive I am and what action I intend to take in office." (p. 25)
Admittedly, in today's context, Sennett's thesis sounds familiar and even slightly unoriginal. It is indeed a common complaint nowadays that the media focus too much on the fight between political personalities rather than on the differences between political opponents' policy proposals or voting records. However, one has to bear in mind that at the end of the 1970s, most so-called "progressive" sociologists or political philosophers focused exactly on the opposite tendency of modern society, namely to favour impersonal interactions in the economic, political or legal spheres at the expense of authentic personal connections. Two years after the publication of "The Fall of Public Man", in Theory of Communicative Action, Jürgen Habermas will summarise this wide-spread critique of modernity by referring to "the colonisation of the lifeworld" by the instrumental rationality of bureaucracies and market forces. Against this background, Sennett's contribution to the sociology of modernity appears to be more original than it may seem to the contemporary reader.
The question remains, however, whether the "Fall of Public Man" offers a compelling narrative of modernity. I must confess that I myself am not totally convinced. In my view, the book suffers from three major flaws.
The first has to do with the investigative method underpinning Sennett's narrative. The author rightly stresses that in qualitative historical studies like his own, one necessarily has to be selective in terms of the evidence examined. As it is impossible to exhaust all of it, he prefers a method referred to in the opening pages of the book as "potholing." His story mainly focuses on the interplay between public and private life in Paris and London in the 1750s, the 1840s and the 1890s. By focusing on these three decades, he tries to "depict the sweep of historical forces and at the same time some of the richness of detail which comes from delving into a specific moment" (p. 42). From the perspective of Sennett, this investigative method may not allow him to "proof" that things happened the way he suggests they happened, but it should allow him to construe a "plausible" narrative as "plausibility is a matter of showing the logical connections among phenomena which can be described concretely."
I agree with the author that this is a fair standard by which to judge empirical social studies like his own. However, I find that he does not fully meet the standard he sets out for itself. The "logical connections" he establishes between the various elements of his story simply are not always fully convincing. Thus, for example, Sennett suggests that "mass-production of clothes, and the use of mass-production patterns (...) meant that many diverse segments of the cosmopolitan public began in gross to take on a similar appearance (...)." As a result, according to Sennett "the stranger [became] more intractably a mystery." (p. 20) I cannot say I totally buy into this "logical connection" which glosses over the fact that even in a society where clothing is mass produced, it is by no means more difficult than before to guess one's social class by their appearance. As any reader of 19th century literature will know, all it takes is attention to specific, small but by no means totally hidden, markers. Other explanatory factors invoked by Sennett also remain somewhat obscure. Thus, for example, he points to "secularism" as one of the main drivers behind the Victorian notion that "appearances in public, no matter how mystifying, still had to be taken seriously, because they might be clues to the person hidden behind the mask." (p. 21) Even after multiple readings of the passages in the book which try to link the two phenomena, I must admit I still fail to fully grasp the connection.
A second flaw is related to the way in which Sennett deals with the historical material he refers to to underpin his main thesis. While one has to admire the breadth of his investigation, in terms of depth, I found his analyses to frequently leave wanting. More often than not, the author refers to a work of fiction, a historical practice, a cultural phenomenon merely to make a point. Rare are those cases, however, where the works, the practices or the phenomena are analysed in and for themselves. The references to Lamartine's oratory are maybe the most striking but surely not the only examples of this weakness. The French romantic revolutionary is depicted by Sennett as a truly remarkable man who could capture the crowd's imagination to the point where it became subdued, passive and respectful. Sennett quotes a few testimonies of contemporaries that indeed underline the captivating effect of Lamartine's rhetoric but leaves the reader guessing as to what exactly was so special about it since the poet's speeches are not analysed at all (pp. 227-237). The same unfortunately applies to quite a few of the pivotal works referred to in The Fall of Public Man.
Finally, I also found Sennett's account of how modern society reorganised the interplay between the private and the public realm to be too one-sided. As indicated above, there are plenty of well-argued alternative genealogies of modernity around which underscore the way in which the personal sphere of the lifeworld has become increasingly colonised by the impersonal technical rationality which finds its roots in the political, scientific and/or economic spheres.
It is a shame Sennett does not engage with this literature more extensively as it would have allowed him to arrive at a more nuanced picture of modern society as a functionally differentiated system in which personal and impersonal communication systems coexist in each other's respective environments. Maybe that would be too much to ask for, however, as Sennett is Sennett and not Luhmann... :-)
July 3, 2018
Scritto nel 1976, è un testo sociologico fondamentale per comprendere l'inversione valoriale tra esterno e interno, tra pubblico e privato, avvenuta nella società tra XVIII e XIX secolo. L'uomo "intimista" del XX secolo (per inciso: l'ultima parte del libro risulta forse la più debole, forse perché un po' datata rispetto agli stessi scritti successivi di Sennett - non a caso in un passo si anticipa "l'uomo flessibile") non è che il logico prodotto di questo ripiegamento verso l'interno di tutti i valori sociali, sia quelli incarnati dall'uomo stesso, sia quelli visibili nello spazio (la città) e nelle sovrastrutture economiche e produttive.
February 19, 2009
In The Fall of Public Man, Richard Sennett (1976) argues that the public realm now has become a mere formality (3) and that the private life has become interoriorized (4), leading to confusion between intimate life and public life (5). Thus, there is a question for the "authentic" self rather than a public of presenting ideas (8). Sennett argues that this is a function of changes in the 19th century. Before this time, public relations were more about "theatricality" than "representation" of the self, the former of which Sennett sees as more friendly to public life (37). According to Sennett, people understood publicity as presenting and theatrical in a sense in the 18th century, but the 19th and 20th centuries brought upon a "ideology of intimacy" (259) with "openness of expression" (262). Thus, we've started to judge character and "authenticity" in our leaders who "can dramatize his own motivations" (265).
November 3, 2012
The most important contribution to the dialogue with the unfinished project of Karl Marx since Guy DeBord comes from the canon of former London School of Economics Professor Richard Sennett. Seminal is his recognition that Marx's efforts to create a theory of historical movement and social conflict rooted in a critique of political economy had nothing in common with subsequent attempts to reduce "dialectical materialism" (or still worse, historical materialism) to a positivistic science, the way that Stalinists like Althusser try to portray the "mature Marx" (sic) of CAPITAL as a "structuralist before his time." This is pure crap and so is all the academic "scholarship," including ALL post-structuralism and ALL post-modernism that issues from it. Sennett, like DeBord, also grasps that alienation was key to Marx's project and also to our own understanding of primitive rebellion and alienated labour, of false consciousness and hegemony, and of the role played by the Spectacle (itself rooted in political economy) in integrating the working class into its own enslavement. Above all, Sennett moots that the rupture between the followers of Marx and the class struggle anarchist tradition in the first international, that gave rise to an increasingly authoritarian fixation of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Internationals with party building, might have been premature - an observation vindicated by the present terminal demise of democratic centralist parties and rise e.g. of Occupy, Anti Capitalist Direct Action initiatives and radical websites including Anonymous, Democracy Now and Wiki-Leaks.
September 15, 2022
A truly remarkable book. Sennett dives into the depths of (Western) cultural and behavioural change during the last three centuries. This book has been published in the 1970ies, but has lost nothing of its applicability to modern times. The majority of a previously politically engaged public has slowly morphed into spectators, organised in groups of secularised believers, who cannot be argued with.
"In a society of atomized social spaces, people are always afraid that they will be cut off from each other. The materials which this culture offers people to use to "connect" with other people are unstable symbols of impulse and intention. Because the symbols are so problematic in character, it is inevitable that the people who use them are at the same time always going to have to test their strength. How far can you go, how much of a sense of community can you feel? People are going to have to equate real feeling with extreme feeling. In the Age of Reason, people gave themselves over to emotional displays which would be considered embarassing in a modern playhouse or bar. To weep in the theater, however, had a meaning in and of itself, no matter who you were. Whereas the emotion experienced in a modern fraternal group is part and parcel of declaring what kind of person you are, and who is your brother. Now the dramatic displays of feeling become signals to others that you are "for real," and also, by whipping you up to a fever pitch, convince you yourself that you are "for real." [page 309]
"In a society of atomized social spaces, people are always afraid that they will be cut off from each other. The materials which this culture offers people to use to "connect" with other people are unstable symbols of impulse and intention. Because the symbols are so problematic in character, it is inevitable that the people who use them are at the same time always going to have to test their strength. How far can you go, how much of a sense of community can you feel? People are going to have to equate real feeling with extreme feeling. In the Age of Reason, people gave themselves over to emotional displays which would be considered embarassing in a modern playhouse or bar. To weep in the theater, however, had a meaning in and of itself, no matter who you were. Whereas the emotion experienced in a modern fraternal group is part and parcel of declaring what kind of person you are, and who is your brother. Now the dramatic displays of feeling become signals to others that you are "for real," and also, by whipping you up to a fever pitch, convince you yourself that you are "for real." [page 309]
January 27, 2022
An interesting look into the societal recession from the public where the self is kept at a distance to the complete immersion into the self in all manner of social dealings which has led to the erosion of a vibrant public life in the Western context. Originally published in 1977, the book was quite prescient regarding this inwards turn into personality, intimacy as conceived through disclosure, identity politics, and the rise of identity as defined by consumer practices all of which have resulted in a dilapidated and impoverished public life and weakening of social bonds and collective means of organization. There's a lot to chew on in this book which requires multiple close readings especially for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. I did think that the author took a lot longer building up to the current paradigm of the public life and could have spent some more ink on the analysis of the current conditions and implications more.
September 4, 2024
2019- Yazarın okuduğum ikinci kitabı. Okuduğum İlk kitabı çok daha kolay okunur kitapdı, karakter aşınması. Bu kitabı için zor okunan kitap diyemem ama konuya bakış açışı beni çok etkiledi . Yeniden okunacaklar arasında yerini almıştır.
2022 -
2022 -
January 20, 2009
A fascinating evocation of changing styles of personal and public expression. . . . Sennett is at once a historian, sociologist, student of psychoanalytic doctrine . . . and celebrant of city life. . . . Seldom have I read a serious work of social theory that explains as much contemporary experience as Sennett's does.
This was a difficult read for me, but one has to admire the breadth of Professor Sennett's erudition, and the reach of his historical imagination.
This was a difficult read for me, but one has to admire the breadth of Professor Sennett's erudition, and the reach of his historical imagination.
May 25, 2019
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 18, 2023
Retrato minucioso del hombre en sociedad. Pinceladas de la sociedad en los siglos XVIII, XIX ayudan a visualizar las premisas que el autor quiere que tengamos en cuenta para entender el camino hecho entorno a las grandes ciudades que ha tenido que hacer el hombre. De cómo el carácter ha tenido que amoldarse a la moral comunitaria. De la represión, ocultamiento, máscara a la hipervisibilidad o pretensión de honestidad/sinceridad.
March 23, 2022
Nowadays (and unfortunately in the most parts of history as well) public sucks. So, everyone should try to keep 'social distance' (the term felt as derogatory during last two years) between personality and society for being in a truly socialized world and so on and so on...
April 4, 2025
Historical research | Public sphere | psychology
Comparison between theater and city
Must read: Intro+chapter9
Really impressive how could Sennett handle the city issues so well. But sometimes still very unclear even the book is logically organized.
Comparison between theater and city
Must read: Intro+chapter9
Really impressive how could Sennett handle the city issues so well. But sometimes still very unclear even the book is logically organized.
June 7, 2014
Speaking as one who has read very little sociology, I found this book to be very eye-opening. It made me aware of things I hadn't noticed, and it explained things that I had.
At some point I may attempt a genuine review. For now, I'll content myself with saying that the descriptions given for two of the editions listed by Goodreads are deficient as of this writing—I should approach the librarians about fixing them. A better suggestion of what the book does comes from a page of Richard Sennett's website describing his books (the bracketed insertion is mine):
At some point I may attempt a genuine review. For now, I'll content myself with saying that the descriptions given for two of the editions listed by Goodreads are deficient as of this writing—I should approach the librarians about fixing them. A better suggestion of what the book does comes from a page of Richard Sennett's website describing his books (the bracketed insertion is mine):
“Public” life once meant that vital part [of] one’s life outside the circle of family and close friends. Connecting with strangers in an emotionally satisfying way and yet remaining aloof from them was seen as the means by which the human animal was transformed into the social – the civilized – being. And the fullest flowering of that public life was realized in the 18th Century in the great capital cities of Europe.
Sennett shows how our lives today are bereft of the pleasures and reinforcements of this lost interchange with fellow citizens. He shows how, today, the stranger is a threatening figure; how silence and observation have become the only ways to experience public life, especially street life, without feeling overwhelmed ; how each person believes in the right, in public, to be left alone. And he makes clear how, because of the change in public life, private life becomes distorted as we of necessity focus more and more on ourselves, on increasingly narcissistic forms of intimacy and self-absorption. Because of this, our personalities cannot fully develop: we lack much of the ease, the spirit of play, the kind of discretion that would allow us real and pleasurable relationships with those whom we may never know intimately.
April 19, 2011
Characteristically nuanced exploration into concepts of theatrum mundi, conflation of private and public identities, effects of urban population density, acts of presentation versus acts of representation, and other topics relevant to my interests.
The work takes a view of public performance on the stage, in civic and political capacities, and in general social encounters. Settings for consideration range from the courts of Versailles to cafes and gentlemen's clubs in London. Thoroughfares, promenades, and the home are all given due attention as well.
Sennett takes a skeptical view of our tendency to judge by apparent personality and intention, above or even in place of acts on record. He notes the dangers of this view: a crippling personal (and societal) incidence of narcissism and susceptibility to charlatans and charismatic exploiters to name a few.
He discusses the complexity and arbitrary nature of signifying acts and displays from contemporary and Victorian times, and how these may lead to neuroses in so many members of society who may attempt to live up to those codes. To say nothing of the damage to those who don't know, or understand, the code by which others are making these judgments.
Sennett is currently my favorite 'unknown' author/scholar, and I would recommend any book you can find in his name. I first read The Hidden Injuries of Class, and most recently am in the midst of Respect in a World of Inequality.
The work takes a view of public performance on the stage, in civic and political capacities, and in general social encounters. Settings for consideration range from the courts of Versailles to cafes and gentlemen's clubs in London. Thoroughfares, promenades, and the home are all given due attention as well.
Sennett takes a skeptical view of our tendency to judge by apparent personality and intention, above or even in place of acts on record. He notes the dangers of this view: a crippling personal (and societal) incidence of narcissism and susceptibility to charlatans and charismatic exploiters to name a few.
He discusses the complexity and arbitrary nature of signifying acts and displays from contemporary and Victorian times, and how these may lead to neuroses in so many members of society who may attempt to live up to those codes. To say nothing of the damage to those who don't know, or understand, the code by which others are making these judgments.
Sennett is currently my favorite 'unknown' author/scholar, and I would recommend any book you can find in his name. I first read The Hidden Injuries of Class, and most recently am in the midst of Respect in a World of Inequality.
June 1, 2013
Sociology became fun to read when I started thinking of it as set of inconvenient fictions. Synthetic poet as narrative researcher. Dialectics of fashion.
In other news, this book is about exactly what the dust jacket says it is about.
In other news, this book is about exactly what the dust jacket says it is about.
January 11, 2016
Después de 2 semanas y 740 páginas...estoy fascinada por este libro. Me ha dado muchísimas ideas y su análisis me parece tan agudo como cierto.
February 5, 2014
Read Martin Buber's 'I and Thou', edited by Kaufman first, then read this work. I have been spinning in circles ever since I did that and want someone to suggest a intellectual resting place.
January 22, 2019
This is a great work of sociology, demonstrating enormous scholarship and erudition. It is unusual for a modern work of sociology to be so discursive- the book ranges from discussions of theatre, architecture, literature, philosophy, psychology, and child development, amongst others. This makes it a difficult book to understand, and one that benefits from repeat reading. However, the ideas under discussion make such time well spent. Sennett is an engaging writer, although in the earlier sections of the book, he perhaps could have defined the terms he uses more clearly. However, this is a quibble.
In The Fall of Public Man, Sennett sets out his critique of the 'intimate society', in which, as he describes it, what is good is defined as personal, and the bad as impersonal. In this schema, 'warmth' is praised over things that are 'cold' or 'aloof'. Ways of thinking about society are transformed into psychological terms- a good political leader is one who is 'principled' or 'authentic'. As Sennett points out, the rationality of thinking about politics in this way is unclear, as those terms rely upon assessing an individual's character, which is not only almost impossible for people who don't know them personally, but also irrelevant to whether the political leader can achieve something for the public that puts them in power.
However, Sennett also points out deeper problems implicit in this way of thinking. In particular, he describes how the intimate society tends towards de-politicization- if 'impersonal forces' are not emotionally gratifying, then they are not considered important in the way personal things are. A person may not wish to conceive of the position they occupy in a social class hierarchy because that would undermine their 'personality'. This prevents them from acting in concert with others to improve their conditions.
Furthermore, Sennett describes how interacting with others on an impersonal basis can lead to people becoming expressive and open, whereas when people come to need to interact on the basis of a personal connection, sectarianism and closed mindedness often result, as personal connections usually imply connections with the like minded. To demonstrate this, several sections of the book are devoted to comparing public life in London and Paris at different points in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sennett favorably points to practices that existed to build an impersonal public sphere, such as forms of dress that drew attention from personal characteristics, that he claims lead to greater sociability than social practices that depend on emotional interconnectedness.
To demonstrate the irrationality of considering politics in personal terms, Sennett also gives an entertaining and very perceptive analysis of Zola's J'Accuse. I'd always considered this a rather strange document, but had not considered it in the way Sennett described.
The book is a very impressive example of how sociology can be a philosophy of everyday life and is highly recommended.
In The Fall of Public Man, Sennett sets out his critique of the 'intimate society', in which, as he describes it, what is good is defined as personal, and the bad as impersonal. In this schema, 'warmth' is praised over things that are 'cold' or 'aloof'. Ways of thinking about society are transformed into psychological terms- a good political leader is one who is 'principled' or 'authentic'. As Sennett points out, the rationality of thinking about politics in this way is unclear, as those terms rely upon assessing an individual's character, which is not only almost impossible for people who don't know them personally, but also irrelevant to whether the political leader can achieve something for the public that puts them in power.
However, Sennett also points out deeper problems implicit in this way of thinking. In particular, he describes how the intimate society tends towards de-politicization- if 'impersonal forces' are not emotionally gratifying, then they are not considered important in the way personal things are. A person may not wish to conceive of the position they occupy in a social class hierarchy because that would undermine their 'personality'. This prevents them from acting in concert with others to improve their conditions.
Furthermore, Sennett describes how interacting with others on an impersonal basis can lead to people becoming expressive and open, whereas when people come to need to interact on the basis of a personal connection, sectarianism and closed mindedness often result, as personal connections usually imply connections with the like minded. To demonstrate this, several sections of the book are devoted to comparing public life in London and Paris at different points in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sennett favorably points to practices that existed to build an impersonal public sphere, such as forms of dress that drew attention from personal characteristics, that he claims lead to greater sociability than social practices that depend on emotional interconnectedness.
To demonstrate the irrationality of considering politics in personal terms, Sennett also gives an entertaining and very perceptive analysis of Zola's J'Accuse. I'd always considered this a rather strange document, but had not considered it in the way Sennett described.
The book is a very impressive example of how sociology can be a philosophy of everyday life and is highly recommended.
July 8, 2020
Hacia el siglo XVIII permanecía la antigua idea del mundo como teatro y las relaciones públicas estaban dominadas por la idea del ser humano como actor. Con el avance del secularismo y el capitalismo en el siglo XIX la idea de "actuación" fue reemplazada por la de "autenticidad", en este proceso la apariencia pública fue entendida como reveladora de la naturaleza del individuo, lo que equivale a un tránsito de la noción de "naturaleza humana" a la de "naturaleza individual". Al codificarse lo público en términos individuales las relaciones públicas pasaron a ser distantes por temor a revelaciones involuntarias de la personalidad, al mismo tiempo políticos y artistas empezaron a ser valorados por su capacidad de expresar sentimientos públicamente, con esto la idea de personalidad dominante cobra importancia, ya que implica despertar sentimientos en un público cada vez más pasivo.
Si bien en términos artísticos no se podía disociar la expresión emocional de la ejecución musical, por ejemplo, en términos políticos se produjo un dominio de lo emocional sobre lo tangible. En otras palabras, se empezó a valorar al político por su capacidad de ser "auténtico" más que por su capacidad de realizar acciones concretas destinadas al bien público, se impuso así una "política de la personalidad"; la lógica detrás es que si lo verdadero es aquello que es inmanente a la observación, la producción de apariencias personales "auténticas" por parte del político hacen que su carácter sea validado ante el público, es el dominio del carisma secular.
Por otro lado, las comunidades empezaron a organizarse alrededor de la ilusión de un yo público que requiere de una participación activa en términos de personalidad, la conformidad acrítica con el yo ideal de una comunidad se convierte en el indicador del compromiso "auténtico" del individuo con el grupo y lleva a la radicalización debido a que apariencia pública y naturaleza individual se entienden como equivalentes. El valor más importante en esta comunidad es que su personalidad colectiva sobreviva, lo que resulta paradójico, puesto que su principal acción será interna y dirigida a la purga de aquellos miembros considerados como "falsos" provocando así su disolución en nombre de una identidad común.
Si bien en términos artísticos no se podía disociar la expresión emocional de la ejecución musical, por ejemplo, en términos políticos se produjo un dominio de lo emocional sobre lo tangible. En otras palabras, se empezó a valorar al político por su capacidad de ser "auténtico" más que por su capacidad de realizar acciones concretas destinadas al bien público, se impuso así una "política de la personalidad"; la lógica detrás es que si lo verdadero es aquello que es inmanente a la observación, la producción de apariencias personales "auténticas" por parte del político hacen que su carácter sea validado ante el público, es el dominio del carisma secular.
Por otro lado, las comunidades empezaron a organizarse alrededor de la ilusión de un yo público que requiere de una participación activa en términos de personalidad, la conformidad acrítica con el yo ideal de una comunidad se convierte en el indicador del compromiso "auténtico" del individuo con el grupo y lleva a la radicalización debido a que apariencia pública y naturaleza individual se entienden como equivalentes. El valor más importante en esta comunidad es que su personalidad colectiva sobreviva, lo que resulta paradójico, puesto que su principal acción será interna y dirigida a la purga de aquellos miembros considerados como "falsos" provocando así su disolución en nombre de una identidad común.
January 23, 2025
Manche Bücher verfügen über einen so starken Titel, dass diese uns auch Jahrzehnte nach der Veröffentlichung noch brandaktuell erscheinen. Bei Richards Sennetts „Verfall und Endes öffentlichen Lebens. Die Tyrannei der Intimität“ dürfte dies unumstritten der Fall sein, denn wer von uns denkt hierbei nicht unvermittelt an ewig dauernde, laute Telefongespräche im Ruhebereich des ICE oder pikante Details & Bilder auf Social Media, um die wir nicht gebeten haben?
In seinem Buch geht es Sennett allerdings um etwas grundlegenderes, nämlich um die meines Erachtens zutreffende Beschreibung einer Transformation des öffentlichen Lebens und der öffentlichen Persönlichkeit, die sich mit Aufkommen des Industriekapitalismus und der Urbanisierung im 19. Jahrhundert vollzogen hat. Sennett spürt auf, dass die öffentliche Persönlichkeit des 18. Jahrhunderts noch von einem gewissen Rollenspiel geprägt war, welche den Bürgern im öffentlichen Raum ermöglichte, nur bestimmte Aspekte ihrer Persönlichkeit zu betonen, ohne sich dadurch in Gänze offenbaren zu müssen. Diese Art des gesellschaftlichen Zusammenkommens in Kaffeehäuser, Salons und Theatern war somit spielerisch, aber auch distanziert. Das änderte sich jedoch mit oben genannten Entwicklungen, denn sie beförderten ein gesteigertes Bedürfnis nach Authentizität und persönlichen Ausdrucksformen, deren Auswüchse wir bis zum heutigen Tage ertragen müssen.
Stilistisch geht Sennett gewohnt assoziativ vor, was in diesem Fall jedoch sehr ambivalent zu bewerten ist. Zwar fördert sie in den besten Momenten en passant bemerkenswertes zu Tage, wie bspw. eine Typologie des populistischen Politikers, die uns heute aktueller denn je erscheinen muss. Andererseits sorgt die ausufernde Darstellung für einige Längen, die mich mehr als einmal an den Abbruch des Buches gebracht haben.
„Verfall und Ende des öffentlichen Lebens“ ist somit ein Werk, das man sich erarbeiten muss und vom Leser ein nicht geringes Maß an Ausdauer und Geduld einfordert. Wer die 590 Seiten bis zum Ende durchhält, wird jedoch belohnt. Und wird erinnert an ein öffentliches Leben, dass heute noch viel weniger existiert als im Jahr 1977, als dieses Buch erstmals erschien
Review bei Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DFIIadtNNaI/
In seinem Buch geht es Sennett allerdings um etwas grundlegenderes, nämlich um die meines Erachtens zutreffende Beschreibung einer Transformation des öffentlichen Lebens und der öffentlichen Persönlichkeit, die sich mit Aufkommen des Industriekapitalismus und der Urbanisierung im 19. Jahrhundert vollzogen hat. Sennett spürt auf, dass die öffentliche Persönlichkeit des 18. Jahrhunderts noch von einem gewissen Rollenspiel geprägt war, welche den Bürgern im öffentlichen Raum ermöglichte, nur bestimmte Aspekte ihrer Persönlichkeit zu betonen, ohne sich dadurch in Gänze offenbaren zu müssen. Diese Art des gesellschaftlichen Zusammenkommens in Kaffeehäuser, Salons und Theatern war somit spielerisch, aber auch distanziert. Das änderte sich jedoch mit oben genannten Entwicklungen, denn sie beförderten ein gesteigertes Bedürfnis nach Authentizität und persönlichen Ausdrucksformen, deren Auswüchse wir bis zum heutigen Tage ertragen müssen.
Stilistisch geht Sennett gewohnt assoziativ vor, was in diesem Fall jedoch sehr ambivalent zu bewerten ist. Zwar fördert sie in den besten Momenten en passant bemerkenswertes zu Tage, wie bspw. eine Typologie des populistischen Politikers, die uns heute aktueller denn je erscheinen muss. Andererseits sorgt die ausufernde Darstellung für einige Längen, die mich mehr als einmal an den Abbruch des Buches gebracht haben.
„Verfall und Ende des öffentlichen Lebens“ ist somit ein Werk, das man sich erarbeiten muss und vom Leser ein nicht geringes Maß an Ausdauer und Geduld einfordert. Wer die 590 Seiten bis zum Ende durchhält, wird jedoch belohnt. Und wird erinnert an ein öffentliches Leben, dass heute noch viel weniger existiert als im Jahr 1977, als dieses Buch erstmals erschien
Review bei Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/DFIIadtNNaI/
April 15, 2024
Yes, the book is too long and the writing unnecessarily baroque. Yes, the argument is unclear and the methodology very questionable. But this is a rare example of good, useful armchair intellectualism.
In the mess of interdisciplinary collage and confident speculation that is this book, there are many captivating and compelling historical and theoretical insights for all tastes.
Moreover, I can’t actually say that I disagree with Sennet’s thesis. It does ring true that contemporary public life can be fundamentally characterised as “the end of speech as interaction”; and that this new mode of life, created by the intrusion of personality into the public sphere and by the incessant drive towards gauging one’s self, stifles political action.
Even if Sennet’s account is imprecise or too vague, there seems to be something plausible and relevant to his main contentions.
In the mess of interdisciplinary collage and confident speculation that is this book, there are many captivating and compelling historical and theoretical insights for all tastes.
Moreover, I can’t actually say that I disagree with Sennet’s thesis. It does ring true that contemporary public life can be fundamentally characterised as “the end of speech as interaction”; and that this new mode of life, created by the intrusion of personality into the public sphere and by the incessant drive towards gauging one’s self, stifles political action.
Even if Sennet’s account is imprecise or too vague, there seems to be something plausible and relevant to his main contentions.
September 18, 2018
Richard Sennett benim favori yazarlarımdan biri ve değerli bir sosyolog. Karakter Aşınması kitabını öncelikle tavsiye ediyorum. Bu kitaba gelince: Adeta bir sosyoloji şöleni. 17, 18 ve 19. yüzyıllar arası geçişi gözler önüne seriyor. Akademik bir dille yazılmış, bir ders kitabı tadında. İngiltere ve Fransa üzerinden analizler sunuyor. Toplum ilk defa bu derece bireysel ve narsist; her şey sanayi devriminin suçu mu? Hayır, gerisi kitapta.
August 14, 2021
[ Η "οικειότητα" σημαίνει ταυτόχρονα θέρμη, εμπιστοσύνη και ελεύθερη έκφραση αισθημάτων. Ωστόσο ακριβώς επειδή φτάσαμε στο σημείο να αναμένουμε αυτά τα ψυχολογικά οφέλη σ' όλο το φάσμα της εμπειρίας μας, και ακριβώς επειδή μεγάλο μέρος της κοινωνικής ζωής, αν και είναι μεστό νοήματος, δεν μπορεί να αποφέρει τέτοιες ψυχολογικές ανταμοιβές, ο εξωτερικός κόσμος, ο απρόσωπος κόσμος, μοιάζει να μας προδίδει, μία μοιάζει φθαρμένος και άδειος.]
March 3, 2024
I started reading this book with some critiques in mind about the fragility of modern public life, and while the book does criticize this fragility and lays down its history of development, it also criticizes critiques like mine that pose communities built around intimacy and authenticity as the solution. I learned a lot from this book and I am still grappling to reconcile my old conceptions with the ones proposed in it.
July 27, 2024
I took so much from this book but my favourite was the point about lack of appreciation for public space...
Everything is a short cut or a way to get somewhere quicker!
We have less places to just go and just be outside.
I also really like the chapter that spoke about children naturally adapting rules of games to make the game more fair (e.g. a weaker kid could stand closer to a target or goal)
It was quite hard to read but I think that was more down to me than the actual book.
Everything is a short cut or a way to get somewhere quicker!
We have less places to just go and just be outside.
I also really like the chapter that spoke about children naturally adapting rules of games to make the game more fair (e.g. a weaker kid could stand closer to a target or goal)
It was quite hard to read but I think that was more down to me than the actual book.
August 1, 2024
Sennett weaves a long theoretical thread across hundreds of years of social history. He makes some very interesting arguments. For me personally, his writing is almost always engaging, frequently challenging, and on occasions opaque. This was the right balance to keep him coming back for more, and interested to see where he went next. I like how this book allowed to to imagine the past and helped me think of the present a bit differently. Lots of food for thought.
October 4, 2023
Mijn Engels of mijn concentratie komen te kort om er doorheen te komen. Terwijl ik af en toe wel pareltjes lees. Maar ik kom door gefragmenteerd lezen en telkens afhaken niet tot het totaalplaatje waarvan ik best wel kwaliteit vermoed... Ik heb uiteindelijk denk ik de helft niet gelezen.
June 24, 2017
Essential reading if you want to understand why public discourse is so hard in the States and why there is not governing sense of public good in situations where there should be.
August 18, 2020
First sociology book studying the psychology of modern man.
The language was difficult for me, so I tried twice before I had the patience to kept on; In the end it really worth the effort.
The language was difficult for me, so I tried twice before I had the patience to kept on; In the end it really worth the effort.
March 24, 2021
FINALLY
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