I think shedding some self consciousness can be a good thing. Feynman captures it with a perhaps more positive spin than this book. http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/039332...

If this is taken to extreme, it's actually very bad. Leaders who don't care for their followers cause a lot of anguish. And how will polite society fare if nobody cares how anyone else feels? So if society needs 90% of people to be self conscious and follow norms, are they all the suckers?