David Riesman

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David Riesman (born September 22, 1909 in Philadelphia , † May 10, 2002 in Binghamton (New York) ) was an American sociologist and educationalist.

Life

David Riesman was born in 1909 to a medical professor. Both parents' ancestors were Jewish emigrants from Germany who emigrated to the USA generations ago. After completing his studies at Harvard in 1931 with a major in biochemistry , he received his doctorate in law in 1934 at the same university. He also worked as an editor for The Crimson and Harvard Law Review . After his legal clerkship in Boston , his path led him after a brief stint at the Supreme Court (1935-1936) to an intermezzo as a lawyer 1936-1937, after which he held a teaching position at the Buffalo Law School from 1937 to 1941 . He also acted as managing director of the American Committee for the Guidance of Professional Personnel , an aid organization for lawyers in exile in America.

As a visiting professor at Columbia Law School (1941–1942) he met influential scientists such as the anthropologist Margaret Mead , the sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld , the philosopher Hannah Arendt and the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm . 1949 Riesman was to the social science faculty of the University of Chicago called, where he along with Nathan Glazer his bestseller and Reuel Denney 1950 The Lonely Crowd (dt. The Lonely Crowd , 1956) wrote and achieved almost overnight fame. That same year, Riesman became a member of the Congress for Cultural Freedom , an anti-communist association of prominent intellectuals that was discovered to have received funding from the CIA . Riesman left the group and began criticizing McCarthy's strategies . Together with Paul Lazarsfeld he worked on a study on the aftermath of the McCarthy era on American social scientists. Riesman is one of the founders of a field of research that later became part of standard sociological training under the name of “ qualitative social research ”. In 1955 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and 1974 to the American Philosophical Society .

In 1958 Riesman was called to Harvard University , where he taught for more than 20 years, with the American Character and Social Structure seminar becoming famous. In the 1960s, his interest focused on changes in higher education in the United States.

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The Lonely Crowd

Riesman's main work (English original title: The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character , 1950), which can be described as the first sociological world bestseller , sets up a development model of social characters , which he characterizes as different types of behavioral conformity. With recourse to Max Weber , he can distinguish three such types , the tradition -directed , the inner-directed and the other-directed . All of these types are to some extent present in all societies; However, in certain phases of population development they become a predominant and therefore typical phenomenon. The period of 'high population turnover' (pre-industrial, medieval societies with high birth and death rates) generates the tradition-led type, which is mainly structured through the feeling of shame that arises when traditions are violated. The period of high population growth (constant births with falling death rate), which characterizes industrial societies, gives rise to the inward-looking type, which is structured "via an internal gyrocompass" ( Heinz Kluth ) on values ​​such as power , fame, truth and beauty ; Deviations create a feeling of guilt . The less dynamic, 'post-industrial' affluent societies with falling birth rates and constant death rates replace this type with that of conformist external control: the behavior of others becomes decisive for one's own behavior; to be accepted and taken for full by others becomes a central value. Deviations are sanctioned with feelings of fear .

Riesman sees this third type on the advance in modern service societies, especially among the younger representatives of the middle class . Most of the book is devoted to this type, whose attitudes towards life are meticulously analyzed. Central to this is the interest in consumption , leisure and entertainment habits, which, according to Riesman, characterize this type more than the previous two, which were mainly determined by their working environment.

The German book title " Die einsame Masse " (the translating sociologist Renate Rausch ) shifts the word meaning from lonely (left alone) with the meaning of "fearfulness" with her choice of words lonely in the direction of "proud standing alone". In terms of content (according to Helmut Schelsky in a lecture in 1955), the translation of “The fearful mass ” would be freer but more appropriate.

Other works (selection)

  • Faces in the Crowd (1952) - source and material volume for The Lonely Crowd , again with Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney
  • Thorstein Veblen : A Critical Interpretation (1953)
  • Constraint and Variety in American Education (1956) - on the importance of economic factors in the education industry
  • Conversations in Japan : Modernization, Politics, and Culture (1967)
  • The Academic Revolution (1968) - with Christopher Jencks - on the politicization of academic education and educational policy in general
  • On Competence: A Critical Analysis of Competence Based Reforms in Higher Education (1979) - on state control of education and society's need for competence
  • Abundance For What? (German Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1966: Prosperity for what? and Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1973: Prosperity for whom? ) - Essays
  • Freud and Psychoanalysis , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1965

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See the information about this facility on the New York Public Library website . See also Simone Ladwig-Winters: Ernst Fraenkel as a scholarship holder of the American Committee in Chicago , in: Hubertus Buchstein, Gerhard Göhler (ed.): From socialism to pluralism. Contributions to the work and life of Ernst Fraenkel. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2000, pp. 43-61, ISBN 3-7890-6869-1
  2. ^ Member History: David Riesman. American Philosophical Society, accessed December 21, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Riesman, David
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sociologist and educationalist
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia , USA
DATE OF DEATH May 10, 2002
Place of death Binghamton (New York) , USA