This week’s obscure recommended reading — The Lonely Crowd by David Riesman, “Considered by many to be the most influential book of the twentieth century.” A bold claim but does it have merit?

Nobody with half a brain would dispute that this is a masterpiece. As I piled through the wonderful prose it was like a veil lifting.

The central thesis is that there are three orientations for individuals and society:

Tradition-directed, inner-directed, and other-directed (influenced most by a desire to gain approval from others).

The conclusion — an astonishing piece of foresight given the book's age — is that society is increasingly “other directed”. The popularity of social media, rampant consumerism, celebrity worship, and the rush to embrace every business fad provide ample evidence.

From Wikipedia: “Because large organizations prefer other directed personalities, they became indispensable to the institutions that thrived with the growth of American industry…today their triumph is complete.

But since the other-directed can only identify themselves by what they earn, own and consume… they are restricted in their ability to know themselves.

Such societies face profound deficiencies in leadership, individual self-knowledge and human potential."

An incredible read.

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