The Fall of Public Man

The Fall of Public Man
Richard Sennett

A Literature Review

The phenomenon of validating the self has glorified substantiated personality at the expense of public life. This is the argument Sennett proposes in The Fall of Public Man, well-supported in many facets but all in a tone of conscientious leftist narrative.

At the very start, Sennett makes it clear that there is a “public problem”. Just as the last embers of the Ancient Roman Republic gave way to burgeoning of Christianity, “to know oneself has become an end, instead of a means through which one knows the world.” (p.4) And he argues that as long as there is an increase in self-absorption and privatization of the psyche, there will be a decrease in stimulation and expression of feeling in society as a whole. Modern psychology was founded on the belief that when the inner workings of the self were understood, one would be liberated to participate fully in life. However, now more than ever, individuals are trapped in their own life-histories. As Marc Augé spoke of supermodernity and the excess of time, where the expansion of the collective memory increases the times that an individual’s own history coincides with history at large, we now believe facts over systems. We have come to expect “intimacy”, which much of social life cannot yield. We confuse individual experience to rationalize mutual self-disclosure as community bonding. So much so that public life is now seen as too formal, and not capable of bringing “self-fulfilment.” The problem with this, Sennett stresses, is that forces of domination remain unchallenged and the loss of objective primacy of social institutions degrades public life.

The main causes of this change in the last two centuries are the rise of industrial capitalism, secularism, and the effects of an ancien régime.

Industrial capitalism has contributed to the “mystification” of material life so that family relations is the new standard, with public life seen as morally inferior. In this way, there is an emphasis on protecting the self from it, further eroding public life.

Secularism has made the immanent and the instant realities unto itself. This means that the self & its sensations are prioritized. Without religion, the remaining basic human rights the Western world commonly posit are: “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. In this way, psychic gratification can be an end to itself. And without the walls of a structured system, isolation is the only protection. As a defense against being read by others, people become mute in public.

The ancien régime used public experience as the grounds for the formation of social order. But now, it is the grounds to for the formation of personality. As urban amenities began to be used by a broader spectrum of society, the new groups of consumers were essentially strangers, and the gather of meaningful audience with established etiquette diminished.


The architectural circumstances

The growth of cities is never as simple as an additive process. And as the 18th century dawned, the reorganization of public squares started to differ from those of the late Medieval and Renaissance period. Previously, a public square was a free zone, with buskers, hawkers, anyone who had any business. Then with the precedents of Piazza Obliqua by Bernini in Rome and Louis XIV’s Versailles by Hardouin-Mansard, the monumental square arose. They exemplified the vastness of space through the power of formal arrangement and design. They were no longer about enclosure or taming of space. This new urban form had a lot less sociability about them. In this way, these structured spaces gave way to a new group of assemblage typologies: cafes, pedestrian park, and theatres. It was the only way to gather a milieu of strangers with more similar causes. But the vast public social interactions of previous times had already started to fade.


The social circumstances

In the mid-17th century, upon greeting someone new, flattery to the higher ranked individual was a means of establishing a bond. This naturally led to gossip, though it was somewhat uni-directional. Then in the mid-18th century, to gossip amongst strangers amongst these open grounds could only happen at a certain stage of friendship. Gone was the instant terrain of topics since hierarchies were unknown or non-existent. There were also inhibitions to distance oneself since the spheres of public and private were starting to blur. Civility could no longer be thought of through communication without being intimate. What we are left with today are a stock pile of phrases for greeting others so as to acknowledge or flatter without being personal. Even physical love had been redefined in the last two hundred years. Eroticism has turned into sexuality. Before, physical love was about the social relationship and the belief in emotional actions towards others. With sexuality, it implies it is a personal identity of a sort. It is the belief in emotional states of being. It is much more inward and does not account for social associations. Previously, the body was a way to symbolize and categorize the self through established emblems. Now it is to express one’s individuality. And since personality became the focus, the rise of the charismatic public figure was preferred over the policies made.


As Sennett’s The Fall of Public Man was written in 1974, it would be interesting to see how his arguments stand up to current times. We still have the body as a mannequin, for messages of identity to strangers. And celebrity worship is at an all-time high, since the personality is of interest, instead of the notions they stand for.


Body as mannequin
Clothes are often thought of as contrivance, decoration, convention. In the 1750’s, it was obvious by glance to denote the rank of an individual, due to sumptuary laws. And although it wasn’t followed to the exact clause, the fact people used the conventions was proof enough that the system worked. But the costumes were a disembodied imagery. The object of costume itself was the message, as it was to blot out individual character and act solely as a symbol. For example, wigs, hats, vest coats, adornment objects, face paint, masks… were all to hide the individualized self and so as to be categorized into some other group. And as much as we argue that today we revel in dressing as eccentric as we want, most of us essentially follow the same system, only that now it is with luxury brands. The messages manifested in branding work because they are known by society at large. The Hermès Birkin bag essentially sends the same message as the powdered La Belle Poule wig of the mid-18th century.

Personality, not power or policy
Political credibility is not much more than the superimposition of the private upon public imagery. With the individual psyche so highly prized over public policy, the example Sennett gives with regards to Lamartine is no different than the Lewinsky scandal with ex-president of the United States Clinton. Or the Eliot Spitzer scandal last year. On the positive side, it is also similar to the Barrack Obama phenomenon we have seen of late. There have been more hours of media coverage on his first 50 days in office than Bush and Clinton combined. And with public expression equating to personal representation, celebrity worship is much more prevalent and relevant. It explains our society’s obsession with people who have essentially done nothing for the betterment of our society. There is not even a need to mention names. Furthering this, the creation of things like Facebook, Twitter, or even this blog are symptoms of these narcissistic times, the tyranny of intimacy, denying the worth of the impersonal and public life.

Sennett most rightfully struck a chord with emphasizing the loss of the public identity. The impersonal individual can no longer act outwardly beyond inner-influences. The absorption of intimate affairs may mark the fall of civility. Erosion of boundaries, though often viewed as progress, is in this case of an imbalance that needs to be addressed. Or is it too ironic that this plea comes from the most individualistic, unedited outlet of our time?