The Fall of Public Man

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He is also a socialist, who has returned to radical politics in late middle age. Ruth Levitas, reader in sociology at the University of Bristol, says he thinks class is important and fundamental, "which lots of people don't, but he also talks about what class means for real lives without drifting off into stuff about identity. He also writes beautifully". Licoppe C., 2013, « Formes de la présence et circulations de l’expérience », Réseaux. Communication, technologie, société, 182, pp. 21-55. Comme le dit D. Trump, dans un entretien avec le Time en mars 2017 : « Je suppose que je ne me débrouille pas si mal ; la preuve ? je suis le Président et vous ne l’êtes pas » (« I guess I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re not. You know ») . Dulong R., 1992, « Dire la réputation, accomplir l’espace », Quaderni. Communication, technologies, pouvoir, 18, pp. 109-124. Accès : https://www.persee.fr/doc/quad_0987-1381_1992_num_18_1_974.

Plusieurs comptes rendus notent avec ironie que les réflexions de R. Sennett reflètent son propre m (...) Berger M., 2015, « Des publics fantomatiques. Participation faible et démophobie », SociologieS. Accès : http://sociologies.revues.org/4935. PDF / EPUB File Name: The_Fall_of_Public_Man_40th_Anniversary_E_-_Richard_Sennett.pdf, The_Fall_of_Public_Man_40th_Anniversary_E_-_Richard_Sennett.epub Sennett and Cobb had set out to understand why an "increase in material power and freedom of choice should be accompanied by a crisis in self respect". Sennett says now that they were innocents. "Sociologists traditionally tended towards opinion surveys. We conducted the work rather as an anthropologist might have done. And we began with completely the wrong intuition, as I so often do in my work. I think it's going to be about politics and outer-world stuff, about economics. But it is often people talking out their subjectivity. In The Hidden Injuries Of Class, people are ashamed that they're not middle class, even though they have contempt for that class.He was also one of the first writers to predict, again with admirable restraint, the economic and political turbulence that may lie ahead. For, as the chilling last line of the Corrosion Of Character observes, a regime "which provides human beings no deep reasons to care about one another cannot long preserve its legitimacy". Sennett's hopes of becoming a professional cellist were dashed in 1962, when he developed a form of carpal tunnel syndrome. A disastrous hand operation made his condition worse. His performing career was over. But then the Harvard sociologist David Riesman invited him to Harvard to "figure out what you want to do". It was, Sennett says, a lot easier to get into Harvard in those days. He was then caught up "in all this political stuff, in the 60s". He also discovered that with the help of an electric typewriter he could write painlessly. "I can still recall the joy of being able to do something expressive that wasn't physically painful." Hochschild A. R., 2003, The Commercialization of Intimate Life. Notes from Home and Work , Oakland, University of California Press. 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.

Sennett R., 1979, Les Tyrannies de l’intimité, trad. de l’anglais (États-Unis) de The Fall of the public man par A. Berman et R. Folkman, Paris, Éd. Le Seuil. 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 middle age, Sennett says he has returned to his political roots. "I started out in the 60s when it was pretty fevered on the left. And then I moved right in reaction to all the bullshit of the counter- culture. I got fed up with that anti intellectualism, the rejection of serious ideas, of serious art and the measurement of reality by psychological categories of the moment, an emphasis on immediate gratification." 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. 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.Gordon D., 1994, Citizens without Sovereignty. Equality and Sociability in French Thought (1670-1789) , Princeton, Princeton University Press

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. When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all ». Thompson J., 2005, « La nouvelle visibilité », Réseaux. Communication, technologie, société, 129-130, pp. 62-87. Lilti A., 2008, « The Writing of Paranoïa: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Paradoxes of Celebrity », Representations, 103, pp. 53-80.Glendinning tells a story about the couple staying at a mutual friend's country house. The host told her that after everyone had gone to bed, peals of laughter were heard coming from their bedroom. Glendinning thinks that "for a couple who are apart an awful lot of the time, it works very well when they are together". Sennett, who has no children of his own, is by all accounts a devoted stepfather to Saskia's only son, Hilary, 25, a sculptor in New York. The thing is ... Sennett probably wouldn't approve of what I just wrote. That is, the above paragraph is part of the problem he thinks he's diagnosed. A provocative book ... Sennett brings us to an undeniably recognizable place, the contemporary urban scene'

Peters J. D., 2006, « Media as Conversation, Conversation as Media? », pp. 115-126, in: Curran J., Morley D., eds, Media & Cultural Theory, Londres, Routledge. Les mouvements sociaux qui émergent d’en bas ne peuvent pas être « politiques » au sens noble du te (...)Chiefly known for his elegant and scholarly writing, Sennett has produced a dozen books, including three novels, since the late 60s, mostly on aspects of the urban experience and the interconnection between authority, modernism and public life. His knowledge spans the disciplines of architecture, design, music, art, literature, history, and political and economic theory, but he adds to all that a rare anthropological hunger for the details of human experience. One of his apparent paradoxes is that while he so fiercely argues for a more disciplined form of public life over any therapeutic-style navel-gazing, he possesses a rare genius for getting into other people's heads and hearts. 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. Goffman E., 1971, Les Relations en public, 2, La mise en scène de la vie quotidienne, trad. de l’anglais (États-Unis) par A. Kihm, Paris, Éd. De Minuit, 1973. 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. 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.