Afternotes III: The Lonely Crowd Within

>The modern market is no longer a meeting place but a mechanism characterized by abstract and impersonal demand. One produces for this market, not for a known circle of customers; its verdict is based on laws of supply and demand; and it determines whether the commodity can be sold and at what price. No matter what the use value of a pair of shoes may be, for instance, if the supply is greater than the demand, some shoes will be sentenced to economic death; they might as well not have been produced at all.

It's no wonder so many people are depressed and anxious. We've replaced communities with commodities, treating people as if they're interchangeable nuts and bolts.

"A promising counterbalance to these trends is to develop alternative ways of being that increase and diversify the “crowd within” - and drive an ongoing inner discourse .... It’s to look more often within, and behind, to develop depth and soul.... And we could do worse than to turn to Jung for a starting point in that journey."

There's so much to Jung's work that finding a way in to the core can be difficult. I once studied several of his collected works. To learn whether his ideas might have value for one's journey, his own journey and motivations are revealed in memoir Memories, Dreams, Reflections. His 'evidence' is the universality of human experiences ... his own and those of his patients.

To get to some of the core ideas (without dilution), try the two books of Vol 9. Archetypes... (which arrives at key idea 'Individuation') and Aion (gets into self, ego, shadow, anima/animus). These aren't easy reads, but many have found the effort rewarding.

Edit: Joseph Campbell's ideas (specially TV series The Power of Myth) might be a more widely accessible way to learn about this path.

Well as much as I can understand the author of this article wanting to get past Riesman’s ideas in “The Lonely Crowd” the time period his predictions occur is during the age of “incipient decline” which is definitely right now and hasn’t ended yet. I do think Riesman predicted the rise of social media in the context of other-directedness without directly describing social media itself. Riesman’s work is still relevant but sure- it’s time for new voices to be heard.

I incorrectly confused this with another book: The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind By Gustave Le Bon in 1896

[PDF] https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/lebon/Cro...

Why 'ancient'? That doesn't appear in the original title, nor is it an appropriate description for a 71 year old book.

> The pendulum has swung too far to the left.

Maybe I'm biased as someone not from the US, but this is sounds so absurd and myopic that it spoils the entire article for me.

The US has never implemented anything remotely close to the "socialist" policies that many European countries have. The latter did so for many decades on top of that and with great success, and most importantly: without causing any of the social issues described in this article during those decades. So if "leftist thinking" is the cause of these issues, then Europe would have had increased anxiety and self-censorship decades ahead of the US.

"But the author is talking about gender politics, not socialism and economic theory" you might say. So? That does not excuse the author from mixing up completely different issues by saying "the pendulum has swung too far to the left" as if social media-fueled internet hate machines have anything to do with things like unionizing, demanding a living minimum wage, affordable housing and a healthcare system that doesn't risk bankrupting people.