The Fall of Public Man

Note: I only read one-third of this title. The author analyzes the multiple factors determining how humans function in public and private (i.e., family) environments. He uses as his laboratory Paris and London from the mid-17th to the mid-18th century, as both cities exploded in population. How individuals dealt with all these new strangers created the impetus to develop communication skills (verbal, dress, clothing) appropriate to either public or private experiences. Private, in Sennett's usage, denotes a natural law (which evolved into a human right). It is certainly a worthwhile topic--in this age of privatization--but Sennett's writing style is so dense and impenetrable that frequently one will need to read the same sentence over show more three of four times to coax the meaning out. It's a style that flourishes in theoretical sociology (i.e., Adorno and Habermas), but since I am no longer a graduate student, I gave it a good college try and then said "Enough." show less

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.

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 show more 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). show less

shelved in HT Green Library - by Reception - Monograph Library (R)

H1.31.6