Private Man and Society Author(s): Otto Kirchheimer Reviewed work(s): Source: Political Science Quarterly, Vol.

81, No. 1 (Mar., 1966), pp. 1-24 Published by: The Academy of Political Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2146858 . Accessed: 10/01/2013 08:56
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PrivateMan and Society

OTTO KIRCHHEIMER

Columbia University

"Der wirkliche Mensch ist der Privatmensch der jetzigen Staatsverfassung."

MARX,

Kritikder HegelschenStaatsphilosophie.

do How does the individualacquirethe capacityto in the generalaffairsof the state?How does it become participate possiblefor all citizens to approach publicaffairs,not as particular individuals,but in such a mannerthat their assembledparticular wills embrace the stateas theircommonaffair?
THE MIRAGE OF CONSENSUS

This alphaand omegaof democratic theorywould lose its explosive on power if we substitutea theory of consensusfor concentration the difficultiesof the individualin his capacityas a fundamental constituentof the state. Were we to hypothesizesomethinglike a nationalconsensus,sometimesswelling to a mighty chorus,sometimes runningunderground, but always strong enough to drown out or interpose itself between the thousand individual conflict situationsbetweenthe rich and the poor, the mighty and the small, we would not need to botherabout the riddleof the commonwill. The individualsspontaneouslyat one with the state on their most vital commonconcernsmay safely leave to the executiveranks the detailsof policy. But theoremsof the nation as fundamentally one, despitetheirfrequent use, have a fragileexistence.In the faceof religious, nationality,economic,and ideologicalcleavagesthey often areforcedto beat a retreatin favor of morepragmatic tests.
Volume LXXXI March 1966 Number 1 1

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If substantiveagreement in socieremainsan elusiveproposition ties whose membersoften have widely disparategoals, consensus basis.Althoughdiffimightstill be saved,so it seems,on a narrower cult to agreeon last principles,agreementmight still be found on what to do here and now underthe changingcircumstances of the day. We might decide to emphasizecivil rights or international peace,but still be willing, when acutedangerthreatens,to call out the police or build the arsenalof democracy. Who knows, perhaps we couldall follow the Low Countries' verzuiling system, and erect our polity on some neatly built up fortressesof separateWeltanschauungen. We could then start negotiating endlessly with each other,providedwe were reasonable enough to build up an ironclad codex abouthow to conductour negotiations.To haggle endlessly over substancebut keep the system going via sacrosanctways of procedure may be one worthwhileand well-knownway out of our dilemma.The value of this procedure,however, may be circumscribedby a commonsense observation:to ride togetherin a bus while wanting to go to differentplaces may be all right, provided that the destinationsare not too differentfrom each other. Recentlyour quantitative brethren have uttereddoubts.They indicatethatwhat they arewont to call the influentialsand the public at largeshow, as expected, little agreement on majorpremisesof the politicalsystem. Moreover,if questionedclosely, and not allowed to mouth conventionalphrases,the publicappearsto be much less concernedover the necessity for procedural guaranteesthan their more genteel brethren.1 We could play down this difference, as an Americanpeculiarity,and point out that other industrialcountries with a different historicalandinstitutionalrecordmay be moreuniversallyconsciousof procedural values. Or, we might surrender to the happy conscienceof the technological elitist, and guess that as long as the going is good, the runof the mill of the citizenrywill not enterthe politicalmarketexceptin defenseof theirown specialized interest.Or, if they enterthey will be guidedby the commonman's recognitionof the superiorworkmanship of the more exaltedcomin performing munitymembers particular functionaltasks.2Or, we couldrejoicewith the civicculture manover the fact that the citizens
'Herbert McCloskey,"Consensusand Ideology in AmericanPolitics,"American Political ScienceReview,LVIII(X964),365. 2 CarlJoachim The New Image of the CommonMan (Boston,1950). Friedrich,

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have such a high estimate of of this outstandingpilot democracy competence, andneednot be concerned theirown politicalsubjective unnecessarily aboutthe gap betweenthe citizens'assertionof subjectivecompetence and theirostentatiousfailureto makeuse of it.3 of any kind remainratherproblematic. Thus,consensusstatements might Besides,as we have alreadymentioned,consensusstatements inquiries.The less suchinquiries runinto the barrier of quantitative the participant politicalstructures, areguidedby imagesof desirable morethey areproneto castdoubtson the natureof the ties between the officialpoliticalestablishment and the underlyingpopulation.
THE MARKET DEFINITION OF FREEDOM

A closer analysis of the structure of man's mind in relationto the surrounding social universemay put the inquiryon a more secure footing thaneitherconsensustheoriesor selectedopiniontidbitsreof social reality can provide.This lating to a complicated structure competence and inabilityto use it hiatusbetweenasserted subjective connotesfailure to connectofficial policies with man's fate. From the recentinquiriesregardingthe averageindividual'splace in societyandstate,Lane'sbookseemsto offerthe best pointof departure for ourcriticalenterprise.5 It accompanies the citizen,so to speak,in his engagement with socialrealityand watcheshow he internalizes does not only aphis variousexperiences. Thus,society'sapparatus pear as an outsideagent to be avoided,resisted,managedone way or another,but also as an elementin his own personalitystructure. man does,individualsand Insteadof juxtaposing, as the civicculture institutionsand tabulatingthe former'srelationsto the latter on a preconceivedscale of integrative or disintegrativetraits viewed throughthe eyes of the best availablemodel of state organization, Lanetries to show us the results of the individual'sconfrontation with society'sideologiesand realities.Thusthe types of answershe receivesarenot predetermined by his modeof analysis.We arepresented with the individual curriculaof fifteen native-bornwhite
'Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba,The Civic Culture(Princeton,1963), 481. '"Consensus is one of the more elusive and misleadingconceptsto have been into recentpolitical theory,"DankwartA. Rustow,The Worldof Naintroduced Chap.I, 21. See also BemardR. tions (Washington,D.C., 1965), mimeographed, Crick,In Defence of Politics (rev. ed.; Baltimore,1964), 24. 'Robert E. Lane,PoliticalIdeology (New York, 1962).

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whose occupapeople,with quite divergentpersonalitystructures, tions runfromvariouskindsof machineoperativesto truckdrivers, policemen,bookkeepers, and supply clerks. Variationsin reaction thanif the authorhad muchbroader patternsareas a resultprobably studiedpeople on a somewhatlower rung of the social ladderand with a smallerdegreeof skill specialization workhabor less regular its. Despitethesevariations,anddespitethe existenceof an irreconcilableminorityof four citizenswho adoptedirrationalexplanatory schemesand viewed their surroundings with a cabalist'sbelief in the presenceof secretgroupsbehindthe scene acting as creatorsof politicalreality, enough commonthemes run throughLane'sanalis ysis to meritclose attention.Only within theirlocal environment the politicalexperience of thesemen an immediate one; within these limits some possibilityof accessto local machinesand politicalfigures exists, and, occasionally,the adjustment of a particular grievancemay takeplace. Outside the strictly local sphere, the importanceof which is dimmed for the individual by the high frequency mobilof interlocal ity, politicalexperience is mediatedthroughotherlayersof the social system, such as unions. As none of these upper-working-class groupshas a wide rangeof professionalchoice,thereis little question of having consciousoptions in social existence.Theirliberty, then, is best described as the possibilityof foragingaroundwithin the confinesof the system for a rewarding job combination opening up maximumaccessto consumergoods. Thesemen's universalliberty is, then, the liberty of the consumer's market.But one would think that libertymust somehowbe relatedto the options in one's life: how to fill one's time after the necessitiesare taken careof. It becomesreadilyapparent that in the time horizonof Lane'ssample collective,images of nation, religion, or class have little part. One might thinkthat thereexist such things as workingtime and leisure time, individualtime and grouptime, privatetime and publictime, with as many variationsin measurements as therearevariationsin intensity of pursuitsand of intergroupand interpersonal relations. Yet, for Lane'smen, only one universalequationseems to exist: the endlessreversibility of two coordinates which arethe men'sprimary time andmoney. resources, This reduction of life into a time-moneyequationlimits the horizon of the future.Not too many time units canbe exchanged,as the

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humansupplyof timerunsout ratherquickly.In orderto escapethis naturallimitationone would have to convertindividualinto collecconsumerexpectative time, switch from short- and middle-range tion to more universalentities, thus transcendingthe time-money equation.But ProfessorLaneis quite emphaticon this point: "the failureto extendtheirprivaterangeof interestand attentionbeyond theirown generationtends to limit the social goals that have much appealto them."6 How do Lane'smen then see their relationsto the surrounding world?Let us examinetwo aspectsof this problem.The first concernstheirnotion of how to relatethemselvesto those on the lower andupperlevels of society and throughthese relationsto formulate their particularnotion of equality. The answer is clear-cutagain. They do not look at the quest for equalityas a desirablepostulate, but as an unwelcome agent of social destabilization.They have of theirinreacheda certainplateau-with a slight overestimation dividualcontribution as against more general social conditionsas the causalfactor-and their psychologicalinvestmentin this position mustbe defendedagainstthe moreunfortunate classes.In order to get the maximumbenefitfrom this form of ego defense,the misfortuneof theselower-levelgroupswill be ascribed to theirshiftlessness ratherthan to causesbeyondtheircontrol.7 By the same token, of a meritorious elite as theirpositionseemsto favorthe recognition the precondition for securityin their own ranking.Thus the quest or is reduced for equalitydisappears to smallincrements of mobility for as a precondition allowingfor a limitedamountof advancement the smoothfunctioningof the social system. The status satisfaction of Lane's workers requiresthat the cleavage between their own ranksand the lower ordersbe upheld, and at the same time legitimizes the positionof theirbetters. If equalityas a dynamicconceptwhich abatesintergroup distance
Ibid., 293. ' The inclination to emphasizeindividual ratherthan collective or accidental chances of personal success can be seen also in the data in Alfred Willener, Images de la societe et classes sociales (Bern,1957), III, 115. Sixty per cent of his Swiss sampleemphasizefactors relating to individualeffort as preconditions of success; twenty-one per cent emphasize that success is socially conditioned; and nineteenper cent emphasizepure chance.The same distinctions are made in a discussion of the causes of poverty: individual factors, fifty per cent; social factors, twenty-fourper cent; chancefactors, twenty-five per cent.

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meets with little comprehension, what aboutsocial relationsin the worker'sown world made up of factory,office, and colleagues?A wide variety of evidencewould show, at best, a somewhatnarrow rangefor initiativeandautonomy,varyingfromoppressive to tolerable accordingto the job structureand form of authority.A halfheartedcamaraderie may occur, resting on sharedexperienceand limited by the continualpresence of competitiveelements; such camaraderie scarcelyextendsto the level of sharedpurposeandclose friendship.In Lane'sinterpretation, the lessons of industrialdiscipline, punctuality,attentionto detail, and avoidanceof waste, help to createthe self-reliantman. The industrialcitizen acceptsresponsibility for his own destiny,thoughin a morelimitedway than did his forefathers. While this knowledgehas not yet been rationalized into a new belief system,the workerhas cometo rely on the helping handof the state in an increasingnumberof situationsin which his own willingnessto do his stint wouldnot suffice. Yetwith all his understanding for the worldof the self-reliantindustrialman who lacks a sense of sharedpurposeor evil, Lanehas little confidence in man'spoliticalabilityor judgment. With slightly condescending praisefor their sturdy qualities,Lane turns toward the professional classesratherthanthe businessandlaboringclasses for the realization of the majordemocratic values,libertyand equality. Giventhe picturehe drawsof his sample'sdistinctivequalities, I fail to see whatelsehe couldhave done.Captivesof theirsurrounding civilizationin more than one sense, industrialjungle-dwellers andone-dimensional privatesin the consumers' army,Lane'sworkers contribute little to the publicenterprise beyondtheirpresenceas producers and consumers. What do we need to add to Lane'sdescription? That libertyfrom the viewpointof the populationat large is first and above all perceivedin consumer termsis by now a well accepted thesis. Butwhat is the genesisof this freedom? Does it rest on the accidental juncture of massproduction, higherwages, andsome sort of communal care? Social securityand medicalserviceshave allowedthe lower strata, for the firsttimein history,to thinkin termsof consumer goods beyond the area of primaryneeds. The lower strata'sinitiation into consumersociety required nothing but the exchangeof their work time for desirable consumer goods. This initiationtook placewith a

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high degreeof spontaneityand a markedabsenceof coercion,which was presentin the previousmajorsocial experiences of this group. Moreover,what was the alternative?How frequentlyhas advancedindustrialsociety offeredthese executants8 the possibilityof parlayingtheirearningsinto enoughpowerto work a radicaltransformationof their present occupationalposition? Whatevertheir chancesfor socialmobility,such chancesdid not essentiallydepend on doubtsaboutfully enteringthe consumer goods market.Yet, the restrictionof freedom exclusively to consumergoods orientation may also be groundedin somethinglike substitutesatisfaction.It to the pointto look at the positionof variousworkseems,therefore, ing-class stratain the production processand to see to what extent theirpositionoffersan explanation for the shrinkageof freedomto the choiceof consumer goods.
PRIVATIZATION,COMPETITION,AND ISOLATION

Whatstrikesus firstis the greatvarietyof positionsin the industrial process.Theproblemis to find a commondenominator betweenthe pre-industrial artisan,still abundantin many regions of southem Europe,the often-analyzed automobile workerwhose rhythmis set by the conveyorbelt abovehim, the girl in the textilemill simultaneously supervisinga dozenlooms, the chemicaloperator watching his dials at regularintervalsand adjustinginstruments correspondingly, and his higher level maintenance colleaguereadingthe funnies while waiting to hurryto some repairjob. If one thinksprimarily in termsof outletsfor initiativeand variation,thereexists little common measure for their respective job experiences.Initiative would becomea disturbingfactorif the pace of work and the time allowedfor it is exactlyregulated by the rhythmof the performance required from the individual.A work groupor an individualmight petition a foreman,and throughhim the engineer,to change the rhythm;if eitherattempted to do so on his own, chaoswould result. The girl watchingthe looms may determine in what orderto examine the machines,and not muchelse. Nonetheless,the operator and
8 The executantclass comprisesall positions, whetherblue collaror white colby strict hierarchicalsubordination lar, where a job is narrowly circumscribed and/or restrictionto a single phase of a largerproject.

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the maintenance man in a fully automated enterprisecan use their ingenuityand play aroundwith alternativesolutions to obtain the organizationally prescribed goals. Thereis no reason,however,to expectautomation will be introducedin the entireindustrial field.Manyindustrial jobsare too marginal to warrantthe necessarycapitaloutlay for automation. Automationwill also limit the workers'individualdiscretionin handling theirparticular problems.Frequently a new layer of office workers or plant engineerswill appear;they are expectedto calculateor lay out in detailthe most economic performance for the worker'sparticularjob. In many jobs educational requirements will increasedrastically, not simply (as has often happenedpreviouslyin times of growingunemployment and job insecurity)by upgrading job qualificationswithout corresponding changes in needed skills, but by raising the numberof jobs combininga variety of skill elements. Skillgroupdifferentials may becomeincreasingly important factors in determining how one conceivesrelationsto the outsideworld.A recentinquiryin a New Jerseycar assemblyplant has shown, for example, thata threefold distinction betweenskilled,repair,andline workerswith corresponding differencesin initiative, security, and status are, without furthermediatingagencies,immediatelytranslatedinto differentattitudestowarda wide rangeof socialphenomena. Confidence in the future,acceptance (with some reservation) of social, institutional, and state organizationsmarked the higher group;so-calledradicalism, mistrustof the surrounding world,and expectationof violence as a regulatorof world affairsmarkedthe lowest skilledgroup.9 Thesedifferences appearas barriers to the formationof common horizonsandbondsof experience betweenworkers,both within the same enterprise and betweenvarious units. But a type of common experience also exists. When Lanespeaksof the self-reliantindustrial man as a prerequisitefor the functioningof democracy,he makesa politicalvirtue out of commonsocial necessity.Job risk is still individualized in the sense that society does no more than furnish a favorableor an inhospitableclimate for job hunting. The socializationprocesswhich the workerundergoeswhen he enters
'Lewis Lipsitz,"WorkLife and PoliticalAttitudes: A Study of ManualWorkers," American Political Science Review, LVIII (1964), 951-63.

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PRIVATE MAN AND SOCIETY I 9

the work groupincludesacquiringa sense of balancebetween coby the universalfact of inoperationand the distancenecessitated terpersonalcompetition. The balance between cooperationand is quitedifferentfrom the specificrole which goes with competition from each eachindividualjob. Two processesmust be differentiated other: the specificrole change, supposedto take place only at the time when a personsteps up the ladderfrom, say, workerto forebut, man, connotesa maskwhichcan be slippedon and off at will,10 in addition,thereis moreuniversaland constantbehavior,the gyropickups scopeactivityof scanningthe horizonfor yet undetermined to improveone'sposition. relationsmay be The model of fully competitiveinterpersonal modelof At one end we find Crozier's subjectto variousgradations. industrialstate organizations."Herethereis a fully bureaucratized differentiated system of conditionsfor entranceinto the organization, and within the organizationthereis watertightcompartmentalizationallowing a minimumchanceof moving upwardon the the cadres have hierarchyof functionallevels. Correspondingly, with the workandpositionof either only a minimalrightto interfere the individualor his functionalgroup.Undersuch conditionsthere is a far-reachingconvergenceof the horizons of individual and disThe incidenceof submissionto hierarchical groupexpectation. existence,'2 partof the worker's the most resented cipline,frequently may not altogetherdisappear,but it loses much of its substance. Changesin the individualsituationno longerderivefroma mixture and the discretionof a determinate of individualaccommodation but appearto be the work of a deus ex machina,ordersof superior, of a proximate an anonymousministry without the participation fromdependHerethe elementof insecurityis transferred superior. ence on the interestand evaluationof one's immediatesuperiorsto of unknownforces, the operationof which cannot the interference
'O HaroldL. Wilensky and Hugh Edwards,"The Skidder:IdeologicalAdjustAmerican Sociological Review, XXIV ment of Downward Mobile Workers.,"
(1959), 215-31.

" MichelCrozier,The Bureaucratic Phenomenon(Chicago,1964). See the instructivetabulationin Andr6e '1 The point is scarcelycontroversial. sur les changementsdans la Andrieuxand Jean Lignon,L'ouvrierd'aujourd'hui conditionet la conscienceouvrieres(Paris, 1960), 8i. Of ninety answers to the named"subforty-twvo question,"Whatdispleasesyou most at your enterprise?" ordinationand dependence."

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cannotbe influencedby be calculated in advanceand consequently of one's own behavior. modifications Of the two levels of insecurity,insecurityby virtueof a life situon proximatesuperiorsor by virtue of imperation's dependence sonaldecisionsderivingfrommajororganizational changes,bureaucraticstructure eliminatesmost of the former.Theirdistancefrom the fountainhead of authoritypreventsthe lower stratafrom catching morethan an occasionalglimpseof decision-making; the missing link betweenhigh-leveldecisionandindividualfate shows up,13 however,to the samedegreein bureaucratic and competitiveorganizations. To what extent upper-leveldecisionsmay be changedby lowlevel pressuredependsas much on the cohesionof the lower ranks in which the work takesplace.Thus, as on the formof organization protection,both against job risk and the weight of organizational of bureaucratic structure, may be obtainedthroughthe introduction rigidity,but such rigidityprovidesno guaranteeagainstmajororganizationalchange. Hierarchical dependenceis also mitigatedin proportion to: (I) the complexityof the task performed, (2) the acquisitionof a high degreeof technicalsensitivity in servicingmais intricatelygearedto chines, and (3) the extent that performance and dependenton the individualeffort of other group members. Hierarchical dependence is also mitigatedwhen automationsubstitutes the job of recurrent observationand possible modificationof an uninterrupted productionsystem for exactly-timedrepetitious physicallabor.A greaterdegreeof workinitiative,exceptunderthe conditionsof Crozier'sfully bureaucratized model, does not, however,excludea certainamountof competition to improveone's position in relationto wages, jobtype, andworkschedule.14It is through the agency of personalimprovement that hierarchical dependency again entersworkingrelationsin automated industries,althoughit plays a somewhatsmallerrole in the work performance itself. Couldthe consumergoods society ever have prosperedwithout t-henotion of the supremacyof one's private existencewithin the bosom of the nuclear family over all other competing values?
See the typical workers' responses in Otto Neuloh, Der neue Betriebsstil (Tuibingen, 1960), ioi, and HeinrichPopitz et al., Das Gesellschaftsbild des Arbeiters (Tiibingen,1957), 227. '4 Robert Blauner,Alienation and Freedom(Chicago,1964), i6i.

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shelteredemployein the acWhetherwe are dealingwith Crozier's or with Zweig's and Hogor the tobacco monopoly, countingoffice foundryworkers,or Lane's Popitz'sGerman gart'sBritish workers,1" is everywherethe same, self-reliantindustrialmen, the experience Herewe are individual. the increasing isolationof the working-class dealing not only with the side effects of boundarylines between itself grouptries to surround groups,the fact that eachprofessional with an artificial barrieras a protectiveshield againsterosionof its Nor are we techniques. occupational basis by advancingproduction places in nonisolation of work merelydealingwith the impactof preautomated industries.It is to the point that workersfrequently This fer to work in isolation ratherthan as membersof a group.16 attitudeis in line with the tendencyto reducerisks and avoid conflict situationspotentiallydamagingto one's own prospects.Thus, can run projectsfor collectiveworkers'action againstmanagement interestof the membersas individualparts counterto the presumed of a hierarchically ordered factoryorganization.17 in collectiveacSelf-isolationand withdrawalfromparticipation tion, even at the cost of loweringthe climateof the work place to a temperature which excludesthe possibilityof collectiveaction,may be perceived,at whateverpsychologicalcost, as the best means to avoid immediatedamage to a personalinterest situation. But the problemmay go deeperthan the ambiguityinherentin a person's choice between upholdingcollectiveaction on the basis of shared within the work correctness experience and the safety of prescribed The climateof isolationis also partof a pseudo-bourorganization. elementsmay or commercial geois patternof existence.Professional continuouslycoalesceto exploresituationsaffectingthem, rally in defenseof an acquired positionor battle those of others.After each theremay remaina nucleusof strongpershort-livedcombination, at the spur of sonal relationships to be recombined and reactivated the moment.In contrast,for the executant, congenialityof environment and people"8 but possibilitiesof controlmay seem desirable,
2 Ferdinand Zweig, The Workerin an Affluent Society (London,1961); RichardHoggart,The Uses of Literacy(London,1957).
'See Neuloh, 236-37. lSee Daniel Mothe, Journald'un ouvrier,1956-1958 (Paris, 1959), a running

accountof such a situation. '8 HerbertH. Hyman, "TheValue Systems of DifferentClasses: A Social Psy-

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ling and manipulating the job environment are restricted; narrowly conceivedeconomicnecessity remains the primaryconsideration. Once "theirsocial rights to a living wage"19 have been securedby the evolutionin productiontechniques,with some assistancefrom the state and fromunion representatives, the executant's interestin his positionas an industrialcitizenrecedes.His reactionsto the endeavorsof officialspokesmento interesthim in any kind of socialization or co-determination schemesare mildly enthusiastic,somewhat like a child's feelings toward a complicatedgift which will bring morejoy and excitementto the donorexperimenting with it thanto the recipient. Theexecutant's interestleansmorein the direction of intra-organizational rewards, his status,initiative, enhancing and salary.20 Wouldthe experience of Crozier's fully bureaucratized organizations contribute majormodifications to this pictureof the worker's passivityandisolation?The competitive situationwhichcreatesambiguous relations between personal interest and collective action may be absentin the fully bureaucratized organization. Since he is protectedin his relations with his hierarchicalsuperiorsby the workingof impersonal rules,the possibilityof formaland informal pressures on the workeris at a minimum.2' Couldone not arguethat with the existenceof this universeof protectivegroupsand individual positions, the blossomingof personalfriendshipsfree from all impediments of interestand loyalty claims should be the orderof the day?Butthe absenceof competition as a majoragentof instability in intragroup relationsdoes not seem to have had the expected consequences.Crozier'sexplanations,which emphasize the conchological Contributionto the Analysis of Stratification," in ReinhardBendix and SeymourMartin Lipset (eds.), Class, Status and Power, A Readerin Social
Stratification (New York, 1953), 426, 433, Table 5. '1T. H. Marshall, Class, Citizenship, and Social Development (GardenCity,

N. Y., 1964),1o6. ' See Blauner,206, Table45. It should be especiallynoted that only thirty per cent of the workersgave cynical answers in regard to the factors determining advancement chancesand that advancement chancesare more favorablein automatedindustries.This is in contrastto previouslyprevailingopinions that workers expectmorebenefitsfrom collectivelygrantedawards,an opinion still upheld by Lipset in "TradeUnions and Social Structure:I," Industrial Relations, I (1961), 75-89. The same type of factorymanagementorganizationorientationis reportedin Neuloh, 205. ' Crozier,Bureaucratic 286. Phenomenon,

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milieu, rest on tinuedisolation of individualsin theirbureaucratic reasons peculiarto the Frenchpsychologicaland social structure. We shouldpreferto look at this isolationand at the shallownessof relations,whichengulf humanbeingsworkingin subinterpersonal as a ordinate positionsunderdifferenttypes of socialarrangements, in our society. phenomenon moregeneralized feelings of dependence Lackof initiative, compartmentalization, (resultingeitherfromdirectsupervision,or from the decisionof an anonymousministry reachingdown to the lowest-levelexecutant) easingof both the physicalburgo handin handwith an appreciable den of workand an increasein material benefits.It is on the basis of both the confiningconditionand the increasein materialrewards In a previousgeneration, that workerresponsemust be considered. when work was more arduousand materialrewardsless abundant, into a larger theirpersonalexperience those workerswho translated Vague equality. often espousedconceptsof social social framework by moreconcreteimideasof a morejust societywere accompanied ages of what equalitywould mean in the contextof work organization. These images includedfraternalrelations of mutual respect relationswith which would prevailbetweenall ranks;hierarchical of the lowest rankwere expectedto fall by the strictsubordination wayside. Duringthe courseof the last decades,workershave learnedthat increasingmaterialbenefits and a much greateramount of social by greater equality on the job.`2 security were not accompanied of the group Whatevermay have been changedin the organization in commandof the enterprise,the workers'visions which had the least chanceof realizationwere those coloredby any type of egaliworkingconditions of moreegalitarian tarianideology.Expectations falteredwhen facedwith the realitiesof the industrialsituation.In the greatdifference this respectit seemssignificantthat, considering in this paper,a majorityof betweenvariousjob situationsdescribed workers wouldnot chooseagainthe type of workin which American they areengagednow.23
a Until recentlythe exceptionwould have been printerswho were considered craftsmenratherthan industrialworkers. ' This is true, even though in the majorityof cases the same workershad no objections to the specific enterprisein which they were working. See Blauner, 202, Table37.

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It is in this contextthat the questionof equalityand status con.sciousness takeson new contours.If workhierarchy is unavoidable, if "thehorizonis closedand the chainis quitesolid,"24 maintenance of socialstatusbecomessimplya matterof protectingone's own interest. This is all the more the case when the conditionsleading to a betterjob in the work hierarchyare of purely accidentalnature (seniority,businessrequirements at a certaindate, etc.), and therefore requiremore rationalization and fortification,or, as the case may be, more cynicism.Yet, the workers'status consciousness,as distinctfromthat of theirartisanpredecessors, does not give rise to any specialpride.25 Theirreactionmay dependon the exact place they hold in the workinghierarchy. Thosewho are able to maintain their status may at times chase away moods of self-flagellation by upgrading theirown relativesuccessandenhancing theirself-esteem throughthinkingof theirless fortunatebrethren. Yet, such tendencies arequicklycounterchecked by industrial man'sinterestin some of the materialaspectsof social equality,helping him towardconstruinga stateobligationto providefor the essentialsof life running parallelandbeing supplemented by his own efforts.Theworkerhas had enough experience with the quirksof the economicsystem to want the state to put up both a permanent collateralto be drawnon in caseof necessityandpossiblysomeextrasto be distributed unconditionallyrightnow. Whilethe existenceof an insurance policymay enhancefeelings of security,it does not change environmentand style of living. Many attemptshave been made to developtypologiesof how to relateexecutantclass experience to the surrounding world.The predominanceof family involvementwill, especiallyin the case of femaleworkers,displacethe effectof workexperience. The samework experience may lead to a varietyof reactionsaccording to the degree of intensitywith which the particular is internalized job experience by the respectiveindividuals.But there are relativelyfew ways to translate this reaction into specific attitudes toward the outside world:an executantmay look at the relationsbetweenhimself and as an individualor as a collectiveconflictsituationin management which managementholds most of the trumpcards, and he or his
24 Workerquotedin Andrieuxand Lignon,210.
25Moth6,15. Forthe oppositetendenciestowardself-devaluation,see Andrieux

and Lignon, 192.

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grouprelativelyfew and weak ones.26Theremay be, on the other hand, a completeabsenceof any societalimage and a completereabove him. fusal to considerwhat is going on in the stratosphere his job will frequentlyemerge as two Both ways of experiencing escaperoutes,and give rise to a type of existence often-overlapping in which those conditionswhich he misses most take a pre-eminent from place:greaterdegreeof personalinitiative,and independence orders.On the upperfringes, especially,of the white hierarchical collar workers,the executantmay feel confidentto take his own risks. industrialsociety that many Thereis ampleevidencethroughout have consideredattemptingescapewith varying degreesof intensity. The most frequentgoal, the hope of buildinga smallbusiness, frequentlyserves as a psychologicalescapemechanismratherthan If the conditionsof personalexistencecannot an actualalternative.27 his combe changed,the individualcan strictly compartmentalize at the work shop and his privatelife. It should mandperformance and withdrawalcome not be said, however, that this renunciation easily. Thereare a large numberof workerswho want to connect To theiractivitymeaningfullywith the goals of the organization.28 are fulfilled,the worker the extentthat these hopes of participation orderrather as a system of participant the enterprise can internalize butpsychologically resisted,necesthanas a grudginglyrecognized, situationof partof the white sity. Thereis also the moreambiguous in the comcollargroup.To whateversmall extent they participate mandfunctionwhile they arestill at the bottomof a ladder,they are on it, andtakeattitudesthatarehelpfulin climbingit.29 nevertheless In the majorityof cases,however,suchconditionsareabsent.This is due in partto the intrinsicdifficultiesof overcomingbasic antagrelations.In part it is also due to a onismsin worker-management policy barrier;the right to meaningfulinformationand discussion
P 233. Popitz, a Thepoint has been discussedfrequently.See, for example,Ely Chinoy,Automobile Workersand the AmericanDream (GardenCity, N.Y., 1955), 86, and
Andrieux and Lignon, 104.

' The point comes out most succinctlyin Neuloh, 86 ff., who, however,due to his constant "harmonizing"tendency, makes no attempt to assess the reasons militating against the fulfillmentof the urge to participate. ' See Michel Crozier,Le monde des employe's de bureau(Paris,1965), 39, and Theoryof Delegation. his discussionof Kroner's

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into the right to disagree and challenge, can shade imperceptibly wants to recognize. whichso farneitherpublicnorprivateenterprise Joblife and privatelife Thus the main tendencyis separationist. have no common Thereis a scarcityof privatecontacts denominator. betweenco-workers. samplenever Eighty-fiveper cent of Crozier's tendenciesmay Such separationist socializewith their colleagues.80 work be reinforced by isolationat the workplaceor by a competitive situation.Twentypercent of the workingforceconsistsof so-called "skidders," peoplewho have been unableto hold on to their posiof one's contacts tions. In anticipation of the loss of a job, restriction damagecausedby sucha threat.At may minimizethe psychological the same time, a policy of shunning deeperpersonalinvolvement might not standin the way of upwardmobility,but favor it by the of the individlack of affectiveties. Whateverthe impoverishment ual's existence,isolationreleasesthe individualfor a vigorousparthe chancefor a more in consumer society,thusincreasing ticipation as a tolerantacceptance of his job, which may now be reinterpreted existence."To be sociallyinkind of precondition for his consumer is to acceptpropaganda, advertisingand speedy in America tegrated in consumption."'" obsolescence
LIMITEDINTERMEDIARIES

With privatization with consumergoods of existencesynchronized orientation,where does this leave the executant'sability to make contactwith the widerpurposesof society?If we say that his conrole of makingplannedobtributionrestrictsitself to his consumer solescencea success,we are assertingthat actingout his privatedeproblemThe executant's siresremainshis only publiccontribution. atic ties with the affairsof the widerpolity have been the objectof of pluralismand mass numerousdiscussionswithin the framework mainly the destasociety schemes.This discussionhas emphasized of isolation, especiallyfor members bilizing politicalconsequences of the lower classes, and resultanteasy accessibilityto extremist politics. Executantelements, who in emergenciesmay be mobilized by extremistdynamism,are more likely to stick to minimal
Ibid., 114; Zweig, 75-88. S'HaroldL. Wilensky, "MassSociety and Mass Culture," AmericanSociological Review, XXIX (1964),176.
8

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politicalengagementin moresettledtimes. They may respondonly in case they feel their immediateinterestsituationis threatened. position in the How do these varioustheoriessee the executant's lies in maxemphasis models, polity?In theoriesbasedon pluralistic imal voluntary participationin intermediatesocial organizations having accessto which are strongenoughto operateautonomously, of it. At the sametime, the politicalelite, yet existingindependently in a systemof linked of members that the participation it is expected in various orpluralismwhich rests on simultaneousmembership groupbalanceeffecganizationsenhancesthe chanceof maintaining tively. How does such pluralismfit the life experienceof the executant for the rankand file of the class?The most importantorganizations executantclass are tradeunions and religiousgroups.The qualificaand fromstampcollectors tions of thousandsof otherorganizations, Parare doubtful. beekeepers, and glee dubs to antivivisectionists ticipationmay possibly be intensive, but I fail to see how these powersbetweenthe officialstate orgroupsqualifyas intermediary ganizationand the individualexcept on a very narrowfront. The had an untold multitudeof assoGermanyof the WeimarRepublic ciations of this hobby type which quickly took to the prescribed in hobbies-often brown coloringin 1933. Intensiveparticipation another form of escapism from political reality-left the people in theirpoliticalignorance,just as it left the countrywithstranded out a governmentenjoying sufficientpolitical backing by major social organizations. intermediary Few membersof the executantgroup will become involved in special ad hoc protest or promotiongroups on a national level. A sharplydelineatedlocal situation-the changeof or an exceptionto a zoning regulation,a hospital or school buildingprogram,a slot machineor a liquorlicenseproblem-may be a differentstory. People in the executantcategorywho are both familiarwith the issue and possibly have an active personalinterestin it may bring their otherwisedispersedand isolatedpolitical resourcesto bear on the constitutionalsettlement To the extent that a particular decision.32 for example,as against Franceand Ger(the U.S. and Switzerland,
' Forthe by now classic description,significantboth for the descriptionof the possibilities and limits of mobilizing individual resourcesfor local action, see RobertA. Dahl, Who Governs? (New Haven, 1961), Chap.z6.

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of the local citizenryin the settling of many) favors participation issues, ad hoc groupsmay ariseand competewith the localfinancial without entering political influentialsfor actual decision-making, the politicalarenain a more steadyfashion.33 in the majororganizaWhat,then,is the meaningof membership tions of the executantclasses,the tradeunions and religiousbodies? Union membershipis often a requiredpassport for certain jobs. may imply only a remoteor membership Undersuchcircumstances, in the union'sactivities.Correspondingly, participation perfunctory of the union's decisions,closely analogous the degreeof acceptance decisions,may relatemainlyto factorshavto thatof governmental fit only ing to do with powerratherthanwith loyalty, and therefore well into the pluralistscheme.Butthe natureof decisionmoderately ties to the makingmay shift and with it the natureof membership organization.In some categoriesof automatedenterprises,closer relationswithin the work group may develop, includinga greater amount of cooperationbetween operatorsand engineers. These closerrelationsmay allow some successfullocalizedcollectiveaction with uninterrupted producmore concerned againsta management on the wage daims of an intion and morewilling to compromise at least amongtheirworkcreasinglysmallernumberof executants, wouldbe releing classstaff.The centralunion type of organization would be decisions bodies. Instead, to legitimizing gated purely types of workerorganizations taken on the spot by decentralized with firmerroots in the workers'consciousness,and consequently Of course,opparticipation.34 with a greaterchanceof membership The stake of workers if not more so. as tendencies are likely, posite in the enterprise may be so high as to lead to clearcutidentification This identification may engulf the existentelewith the enterprise. The workers might accept the ments of workers'representation. for dealing with the outside enterprisefully as their intermediary world. Were this to occur,such conditionswould create,insteadof
3The manifold social, economic,and political variations of new group entry into and exit from the local political processare now unraveledin RobertE. Agger, Daniel Goldrich,and BertE. Swanson,The Rulersand the Ruled (New York, 1964). The authors rectify the somewhat over-optimisticconclusions in regard to non-elite participationin the local political processwhich readersmight draw if they were to generalizefrom Dahl's New Haven picture. 3 This hypothesis is discussed in Serge Mallet, La nouvelle classe ouvriere
(Paris, 1963), 27-69.

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PRIVATEMAN AND SOCIETY I 19

bureaucratic papergiants, dispersedcentersof more firmly rooted authorityfor the participants.35 Unions would becomea more vigorousandpromisingcandidate for the roleof the majorintermediary
organization.

Thepossibleroleof religiousorganizations is still less easy to circumscribe without consideringthe particularities of case and country. In spite of a thoroughsecularization of industrialsociety, and a corresponding increasein purely nominal membership, religious bodiesstill reachpotentiallymoremembersof the executantgroups than any other organization.Yet, to qualify as an effectiveintermediaryorganization,such bodiesneed not only have an existence separatefromthe state, but also need to appearto theirmembersas separateentities. This requirement certainlyraises questionsfor a countrysuch as Italy3" and, to a somewhatminordegree,for West Germany.In both cases the majordenominations today are official
bodies.

TheUnitedStatessystem,on the otherhand,operates on the basis of separationbetween state and a multiplicityof religiousbodies, none of which has a predominant position. In the mind of an optimistic sociologist,37 this arrangement has been one of the sources of success of the United States establishment.Accordingto this interpretation, disestablishment has been an incentive for turning churchesinto secular, utilitarian, and democraticestablishments, with a high degreeof "religiousmobility."The very use of the exin commercial civilizapressiondenotesa late stage of development
collusion against the state has oc'An extremecase of management-worker and works council often agreedon the curredrecentlyin Germany.Management introductionof a private kind of court system for employes guilty of asocial conduct extending from infractionsof factory rules to larceny and sexual misdemeanors.Fines meted out by a combinedworkerand managementrepresentation would settle problems,expeditiouslypreventingthe wasting of scarcelabor power of defendantsand witnesses and the disturbanceby outside interference of enterpriseharmony. For some details, see Herbert Lederer,"Betriebsjustiz etwas ausserhalbder Legalitat," Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte, XVI (1965), ' ForItaly, see JosephLaPalombara, InterestGroupsin ItalianPolitics (Princefor the ton, 1964), Chap.IX. The authorhas coined a new concept,"parentela," interrelationbetween church,ancillarychurchbodies, political parties, and state administration.This state of affairs,however, is subject to changes-vide Austria-where the dominantCatholicChurchhas, in the last decades,and despite its character as a publicinstitution,becomeindependentfrom the political setup. SeymourMartinLipset, The First New Nation (New York, 1963).
215-19.

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tion wherereligionmay be primarilyviewed as a social promotion scheme. Within this system, sects retaining elements of an apocalyptic theology continue to preach to their flock the promise of future glory. Thesesects renderthe social system anothersignificantservice by reconcilingtheir flock to the notion that the social system's In inequalitiesand iniquitiesare of strictly secondaryimportance. exchange,the politicalsystem, in spite of the sects' refusal to join the bandwagonof consumergoods orientation,grants them the same type of protectionand recognitiongiven to the majorchurch organizationswhich are more intent on transformingthemselves
into institutions providing social service and status satisfaction."8 The difficulty of this position, if looked at rather as an operative device within a pluralist society than as a description of previous development in the field of religious institutions, concerns the impact of those denominations which continue to play a role in confirming status while their social service function is atrophying.39 By raising specific social and moral problems on the basis of revealed truth accepted as a binding norm by the community, the churches create an incomparably firmer position for formulating and pressing demands on government authority than were they to opine on a broad front of contemporary issues merely on the basis of the
Zeitgeist.

In contrast, various sects which serve as institutionalized devices for the incapsulation of their members against the surrounding world exercise a much stronger hold on their members. Because they radically divert their members' interest from the hopeless affairs of this world,40 they arrive-except for occasional clashes with the

and Religious Involvementin GreatBrit88 RodneyStark,"Class,Radicalism, ain," AmericanSociological Review, XXIX (1964), 698-706. The author shows that-with associational affiliation kept constant-differences between upperclass religious affiliation,seventy-threeper cent, middle-class,fifty-six per cent, and working class, thirty-nineper cent, are quite appreciable(p. 703). 8 The facts are scarcelycontroversial.See, for example,ArthurJ. Vidich and
Joseph Bensman, Small Town in Mass Society: Power and Religion in a Rural Community (Princeton, 1958), 313. For the correspondingfading of religious

consciousnesssee Lane'sinstructivecase studies, 129, 137. For the British material compareZweig, 146-53, and Hoggart, 93-99. 4'See, for example,Wilbur Cash, The Mind of the South (New York, 1941),
291 ff.

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PRIVATEMAN AND SOCIETY I 21

of the sects' memparticipation state authoritiesover compulsory functions-at easy coexistencethroughnonbers in state-ordered participation. This may be a welcomefeaturefor a state authority but it providessomewhatproblemhard-pressed by many demands, of atic support for the modelof a societyrestingon the participation independent intermrediaries. A more favorablecandidatefor the role of such an intermediary yet independent type is offeredby the experience of a predominant, The absenceof any comof church,as is presentlyfoundin France. yet prevents fragmentation petition encouragesexperimentation, area considerThesecategories according to socialstatuscategories. andto the claimto representativeablebarrier to moraleffectiveness ness for any religious organizationwhich has left the sect stage behindit. The Frenchtype of independent churchtries to solve the problemof relatingits core activitiesto varioussocial subdivisions a multitudeof ancillaryorganizations with a certain by encouraging amountof initiativein theirrespectivefields of action. In this way, the churchenhancesits legitimacyin its dialoguewith the state,adand dressingthe state eitherin the interestof specialdisadvantaged groupsor as a spokesmanfor broadersocial obunder-represented wouldnot reachfurtherthan jectives.Knowingthatits effectiveness the active supportof its membersallows, the churchtries the difficult experiment of combiningforms fixed by traditionand dogma with a widerrangeof socialandpoliticalchoices.The churchhas an andpolity,whichis the morepervasiveand impacton bothmembers ubiquitousfor only rarelymountinga directchallengeto the official state authority.Factorsfavoring the church'sposition are its indesome cohependenceand distancefrom the officialstate apparatus, sion in its religiouscore,absenceof a rigid politicaland social docproblemsthrougha trine, and solutions of vexing decentralization organizations. of semi-independent ancillary multiplicity
AND DISTANCE MALLEABILITY

one. The associational balancesheet of the executantis a checkered The increasing thoughtandeffortthe officialworldgives to the improvementof his conditionserves, to use T. H. Marshall'swords, not only "to raise the floor-levelin the basementof the social edifice," but "to remodelthe whole building."41 The offeringsof the
'

Marshall,io6.

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mass media, in short, the possibility of partakingin civilization's coupledwith wareswithoutthe necessityof any activeengagement, a heavy dose of skepticismtowardthe motivationsof those doing the offering("we are not buying it") saps the executant'scommitment to any of the various policy centers of society. He is their of some politicalcompeclient, and thanks to the universalization tition and industry'sinterestin any outlets, the executant'sneeds and reactionshave become a matter of steady preoccupation for thosecenterswhichx-ray andanalyzethe needsand reactions of the for carryingout theircombinedservice executantas a precondition and domestication job. But the occasionswhen the executantentersinto communication with these centersremainlimited. Even during the work process, which provideshis most vital, frequent,and directcontactwith the world outside the shopping centerhorizon, the executant'ssocial is restricted to his peersand the next higher execucommunication eitheron tant echelon.42 Otherwise,verticalrelationsare conducted a purely ceremonial level or througha class of professionalsocial the clergyman,the laborpolitican, the personneloffimiddlemen: checkup on, or orient, cer,who serveas links or, to put it differently, the worldof the executant. turnaround,as has recentlybeen done, and One might therefore There contest the validity of the pluralistassumptionaltogether.43 are enoughexamplesof how the channelingof intensiveloyalty to cohesive and strong intermediary organizationsof the movement in the politor sect typemay deprivethe stateor officialparticipants with the adherentsof such moveical process of communication andatrophy mentsor sects,while allowingsuchbodiesto checkmate the officialmachinery.To avoid such a misfortune,one might feel constrained either to put more relianceon the individualagain, or resortto the beneficialequalizingtendenciesof mass culturewhich between the various popular will in time even out the differences stratain the industrialuniculture.Meanwhile,the most resourceful individualsof the executantclassesmay have developedenough upward social mobility and found their way into the executive
4 See the figuresgiven by Neuloh, 88-89. 4Joseph R. Gusfield,"Mass Society and ExtremistPolitics,"AmericanSociological Review, XXVII (1962), 19-30. See also Charles Perrow, "The Sociological

Perspectiveand Political Pluralism,"Social Research,XXXI (1964), 411.

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PRIVATEMAN AND SOCIETY | 23

classes. Their self-reliancemay be sufficientto allow them to find theirway throughthe jungle of the industriallandscape;theircontributionto the politicalprocess is likely to be more modest. The executantis unlikely to disturbthe politicalprocess,but, if called upon,he makeshis legitimizinggesture.Wilenskyinsists that mass in use by different of perception culturewill even out the apparatus groups, and create,in the long run, consistentbehaviorbetween To the extent that variousgroups,classes,and fields of activities.44 man and mass man pluralistic that point the this contentionmakes are not essentiallydifferententities, it is well taken. Pluralisticorthe meneurs churches, suchas the media,the established ganizations des masses (as RaymondAron calls the politicalas well as the inand amuse the which channelize,indoctrinate, dustrialleadership) masses, will continueto speak in differenttongues. Their message remainsthe same: You never had it so good, be friendly to each other, and, above all, do not upset the applecart. Or is even But what will be the reactionamong the executants? in the ways of mass such a questionillicit?Has not indoctrination reality?Wouldone a commonway of experiencing societyproduced not want to concludethat whatever differencesdo exist are due eitherto differentpeople exercisingdifferentfunctionsin line with their capacities,or to very personaldeviations,that is, reactionsto the commonfare of civilizationwhich can be explainedby differBut is it true to assertthat all classesperceive encesin personality? realityin the sameway becausethey areall subjectto the samelevelDoes this way ing mass cultureinfluencesin after-working-hours? of lookingat thingsnot neglectthe differentrole of mediain the life capacityto manipof a different of variousclasses?Is the perception ulate realitynot a moreconstantand morepowerfulelementin human behaviorthan the unifying mass culturetheory?Is the phenomenonof isolation and withdrawal,conditionedas it is by the society,not andhis positionin industrial of the executant experience helplessnesswhichhe feels becauseof identicalwith the permanent reality?Yet the narrowlimits within whichhe is able to manipulate the only thingwhichmass culturecannotdo is to changetheselimitations in dealingwith reality.To that extent the growing identity reactionin the fieldof politicaland economicconsumpof consumer
" Wilensky, "MassSociety and Mass Culture,"i8o.

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tion will not close the gap. It may well be that electoralresponseto Ike'spersonalitycan be dosely correlated with responsesto undiscussedgasolineads.45 Does this mean that the executant's vistas are infinitelymalleableby all organizations workingin the context of mass society?I think that the combinedsystem of consumergoods orientationand withdrawalto one's privacy allows a differentinterpretation. Mostof what canbe singledout as relevantbehaviorarereactions within the contextof mass-consumer institutions.Which candidate of two competingcatch-allmass partiesthe executantvotes for, to whichbrandof gasolinehe gives his temporary allegiance, what TV programhe switcheson, may have important consequences for the purveyorof the respectivegoods. But for the individualthese decisions drawtheirimportance only from the fact that they createthe illusionof a marginof initiative.Fora fleetingmomenthe may enjoy this initiativeand then becomea victim of subliminalguidance by the purveyorsof these articles.While he might carefor the illusion of initiative,he caresfor nothing else in this decision,because it does not constitutea meaningfulcontribution to his problemof how to enlargehis controlover reality. Thus,the privacyof mass civilizationis at the same time privacy and protectionagainst mass civilization.The mass man as a producerandas a consumer may overlap,but they arenot identical.The fact thatmassman escapesfromthe firstrole to the seconddoes not give the secondrolecomplete controloverhim. Thus,fromthe viewpoint of mass civilization,the executant's withdrawaland isolation remainsambiguous. It makeshim the customer of mass civilization, but as in the case of the associationswhich the mass man joins, he does not becometheir prisoner.Mass man's withdrawalis not related to self-confidenceor coolness toward those agencies which guidehis consumer and leisuretime satisfactions. The reasonis that these agenciesare insufficientlyrelatedto the majorproblemof his existence:his purposein life. Evenif tomorrow's consumersociety couldfill his last desires,therefore,and do a still moreperfectjob in new ones, mass man would still have a creatinguninterruptedly chanceto escape.The consciousnessof his inability to controlhis job is at the same time the measureof mass man's distancefrom being irrevocably engulfedby mass society.
' Ibid.

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