Autonomy and Social Change

Discussions of David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd often overlook the third section of the book, titled simply "Autonomy", yet I feel it is the most important section for understanding the social transformations of the 1960's, and for thinking about the multiple facets of the character of Don Draper.

When summarizing Riesman, it is necessary to break through the convenient short-hand labels he provides for types of social character -- tradition-directed, inner-directed, other-directed -- and dig a little deeper into the nuance of his descriptions. From the outset, Riesman emphasized that he is describing "social character", not the whole of individual's personality. Riesman indicates that he is interested in the "way in which society ensures some degree of conformity from the individuals who make it up" -- something that every society does. Quoting psychologist Erich Fromm, he notes the connection between social character and the different ways that character is instilled in children in different societies: "In order that any society may function well, its members must acquire the kind of character which makes them want to act in the way they have to act as members of the society or special class within it. They have to desire what objectively is necessary for them to do. Outer force is replaced by inner compulsion." (Riesman, 5, emphasis in original)

[Riesman was making comparisons with socialization in native tribes, but as I am writing this post on the morning of the royal wedding we have an interesting and extreme contemporary example of this process of instilling social character in the William, the prince and future king, who presumably had to acquire the kind of character to make him "want to act" the way he has to act as a member of a "special class within" British society. Our modern discomfort with the "autonomy" we presume Kate Middleton must be giving up is another indication of how social character has changed.]

From Riesman's starting point -- how does any society develop social character to ensure a degree of conformity necessary for the smooth functioning of that society -- he begins to explore the ways in which American society has developed social character, and determines that the urban upper class of the late 1940's (his book was first published in 1950) were showing evidence of a new type of social character -- the other-directed -- which was becoming the "dominant mode of insuring conformity" in elite circles. (Riesman was largely concerned with male character, and I'll use male pronouns in summarizing his descriptions.)

For American society, the tradition-directed character was of little importance. Riesman felt that for the West as whole the Middle Ages was the last time "in which the majority were tradition-directed" (10), although he acknowledged that there were isolated pockets of American society in which some tradition directed character formation was still present. The vast majority of Americans, instead, were inner-directed. Society aimed to instill conformity in outward behavior, but also instill an inner moral compass that was "rigid though highly individualized" (15). This social character is the archetype of the American pioneer, building a civilization in the wilderness, rugged, individual, and making moral choices (the kind which society would approve of) without close supervision because he conforms to the distant voices of  an older generation whose guidance he "internalized in his childhood" (31). As Gary Edgerton points out in his introduction to Mad Men: Dream Come True TV, Don and Peggy are in many ways representative of the inner-directed character type (xxiv), although with a mix of the autonomous type, as I'll discuss below.

Riesman's other-directed American, by contrast, constantly looks for guidance from his peer group, at school when he is growing up, at work and within society as an adult. Because his relationships with other people determine his success, the other directed American must become more sensitive to the inner states of his peers than the inner-directed man. Conformity to rigid abstract standards of right and wrong behavior is less important than determining and conforming to the desires of those individuals who hold power, or stand as gatekeepers in one's particular environment. Riesman summarizes: "The goals towards which the other-directed person strives switch with that guidance; it is only the process of striving itself and the process of paying close attention to others that remains unaltered throughout life" (21). Edgerton singles out Pete and Betty as representative of the other directed social character on Mad Men (xxiv). I would argue as well that the depiction of the advertising business in Mad Men is representative of the phenomenon as well, as the employees of Sterling Cooper strive to stay in synch with the needs (and whims) of their clients and their bosses.

Adjustment, Anomie, Autonomy

With the definition of Riesman's character types as background, we can get to the really interesting part. Recall that Riesman emphasized from the outset that social character and conformity were not the entirety of human character or personality -- "the individual is capable of more than his society usually asks of him" (241). In the relative openness and diversity of American society, there is "room for disparities", tensions between generalizations about social character and "adult social role" which "can be among the important leverages of social change" (240).

Riesman sees society as consisting of a large number of those who are adjusted, "who reflect their society, or their class within the society, with the least distortion". Those who are not adjusted, who do not easily conform "may be either anomic or autonomous." The anomic character would come to the attention of the mass media a few years after Riesman'sanomic, anti-hero outsider and the autonomous, authentic, counter-culture hero, but that is a story for another post.

The autonomous, for Riesman, "are those who on the whole are capable of conforming to the behavioral norms of their society -- a capacity that anomics usually lack -- but are free to choose whether to conform or not." (242). Think of Don Draper in the season 1 episode "The Hobo Code", leaving Midge's Village apartment at the end of the evening that included pot smoking, knowing the police are outside, and having one of Midge's friends tell him that he can't go out there. Don puts on his hat, his symbol of conformity and respectability, and says something like "you can't". Matthew Weiner seems to go to great lengths to show that Don has the ability to conform to almost any group he finds himself in -- the decadent jet set crowd in Joy's Palm Springs, the hot rod guys in Anna Draper's neighborhood, creative types, business types, country club types. Don can move in and out among the different groups and play a role -- not always comfortably, but with some ease -- and still retain an autonomous sense of self who is apart from all of those social roles. Don is not fully at ease with his autonomy either -- his sense of being apart from society contributes to his existentialism, and to his desire to belong to a family in some uncomplicated way.

It is Don's autonomy -- his incomplete but often sincere search for a more authentic self within the constraints of society -- that is the core dramatic tension of the series, and one of the things that makes Don's character arc (I'm starting to think its true shape is an upward spiral) in the series to date representative of a key aspect of social change in the '60s. As the '60s transpire, the autonomous character type finds more cultural room to maneuver, particularly when that authenticity can be successfully combined with a "creative class" work culture.