The Lonely Crowd

Other orientedness was a popular subject in mid-20th century sociology. David Reisman's The Lonely Crowd and Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life are two noteworthy examples. Max Weber coined the term “disenchantment.” He would have shuddered at the discipline of socioometrics which is tailor-made to the kind of outcome studies favored by marketeers for whom focus groups are more telling than values.The tools of modern sociology like those of  behavioral psychology are geared to selling rather than understanding. If you travel to Rome and wander around grand old neighborhoods and even outliers like Rebebbia, the home of the prison and the last stop on the B line, you might or might not be thinking about Talcott Parsons another sociologist, but probably not. Instead thoughts of Lucretius’ great poem De Rerum Natura, On the Nature of Things along with Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve, who begins his  meditation on the poem by describing his mother's life-long fear of dying.

start your New Year by reading  "Died Young" by Francis Levy, The Brooklyn Rail

and listen to "I Love to Love (and My Baby Just Wants to Dance)" by Tina Charles (1975)