mass society daniel bell

8/13/2019 Mass Society Daniel Bell

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/mass-society-daniel-bell 1/8

28 The Theory o Mass Society

DANIEL BELL

Thl8 .election prouides another per p<ctive on the ide<u contained In the twopreceding articles. I t 8 BeU's contention that there is no really substantial eoIdenceto shaw that our Wesiern world is becciming increasingly a f7UlSS society -stiflingand preventing the express Qn of Indioidual interest. H feels tMt the theory athe moss society no longer serves ... a description of Western society, but as anIdeology o romantic protest against contemporary society. In developing thisthesi8, Bell amines and refutes some basic mptions widely held bV manypopulor writer. and social scientisis.

The sense of a radical dehumanizationof life which has accompanied events ofthe past several decades has given riseto the theory of "mass society. One cansay that, Marxism apart, t is probablythe most influential socia therapy in theWestern world today. While no single in-dividual has stamped his name on it-to

the extent that Marx is associated withthe transformation of personal relationsunder capitalism into commodity values,or Freud with the role .of the irrationaland unconscious in behavior-the theoryis central to the thinking of the principalaristocratic, Catholic, or Existentialist critics of bourgeois society today. Thesecritics-Ortega y Gasset, Karl Mannheim,

Karl Jaspers, Paul Tillich, Gabriel Mar-cel, EmIl Lederer, and others-have beenconcerned less with the general condi-

tions of freedom, than with the freedomof the person, and with the possibility for

SOV1\CE: Reprinted from Com menttutl. vot. 22no . 1 (July 1956), 7 ~ Copyright by theAmerican Jewish Committee. The essay also ap-pears in revised form in Daniel Bell. The Enda Ideology (Glencoe, llLTh. Free Press, 1950).• The author is professor of sociology at HarvardUniversity and coeditor of The Public Interest.His chief interests are industrial relations andiIldustrial sociology He is the author of m e r i ~can Marxist Parties, ork in. the Life of an m e r ~icon, Work and I , Ditcontenl.r. and The lie.forming o General Education.

some tew persons of achieving a sense ofindividual seU in our mechanized society.

The conception of "mass society canbe summarized as follows: The revolutions n transport and communications

have brought men into closer contactwith each other and bound them in newways; the division of labor has madethem more interdependent; tremors in

one part of society affect all others. Despite this greater interdependence, how-ever individuals have grown more es·

tranged from one another. The oldprimary group ties of family and localcommunity hav,e been shattered; ancientparochial faiths are questioned; fewunifying values have taken their place.

Most important, the critical standards ofan educated elite no longer shape opinion or taste As a result mores and

morals are n constant Hux, relations be-

tween individuals are tangential or com-partmentalized rather than organic. Atthe same time greater mobility, spatialand social intensifies concern over status.

Instead of a fixed or known status sym-

bolized by dress or title, each personassumes a multiplicity of roles and constantly has to prove himself in a succes-

sion of new situations. Because of ll this.

the individual loses a coherent sense ofself. His anxieties increase. There ensues

193



-

l

a search for new faiths. The stage is thusset for the charismatic leader, the secularmessiah, wbo, by bestowing upon eachperson the semblance of necessary grace,and of fullness of personality, supplies asubstitute for the older unifying beliefthat the mass society has destroyed.

In a world of lonely crowds seeking in·

dividual distinction, wbere Vli.Iues areconstantly translated into economic cal.culabillties, where in extreme situatioDsshame and conscience can no longer reo

strain the most dreadful excesses of terror,the theory of the mass society seems aforceful, realistic description of contem·porary society, an accurate reflection ofthe qu lity and feeling of modem Ufe.But when one seeks to apply the theoryof mass society analytically, it becomesvery slippery. Ideal types, Uke the shad·ows in Plato s cave, generally never give

us more than a silhouette. So, too, withthe theory of mass society. Eacb of thestatements making up the theory, as setforth in the second paragraph above,might be true, but they do not follownecessarily from one another. Nor can wesay that all conditions described arepresent at anyone time or place. More

than that, there is no organizing principleother than the general concept of abreakdown of values -which puts the

individual elements of theory together ina logical, meaningful-let alone historical-manner. And when we examine the Way

the theory is used by those who ern·ploy it, we find ourselves even more ata loss.

As commonly used in the term massmedia, mass implies that standardizedmaterial is transmitted to all groups ofthe population uniformly. As understoodgenerally by SOCiolOgists, a mas ; is a heter·ogeneous and undifferentiated audienceas opposed to a class, or any paroclUaiand relatively bomogeneous segment.Some sociologists have been tempted to

DANIEL BELL

go further and lll.ike mass· Ii rather pejorative term. - Because the mass mediasubject a diverse audience to a commonset of cultural materials, t is arguedthat these experiences must necessarilylie outside the personal-and therefore

meaningful-experiences to which the in·dividual responds directly. A movie audio

ence, for example, is a mass· becausethe individuals looking at the screen are,in the words of the American sociologistHerbert Blumer, separate, detacbed,and anonymous.- T le mass divorces

or alienates the individual fromhimself.

Presumably a large number of individ·uals, because they have been subjectedto similar experiences, now share somecommon prychological reality in which

the differences between individual andindividual become blurred; and accord·ingly we get the sociological assumptionthat each person is now of equal weight;and therefore a sampling of what suchdisparate individuals say they think con·stitutes mass opinion. But is this so? In·dividuals are not t bul e rasae. They

bring varying social conceptions to thesame experience, and go away with dis·similar responses. They may be silent,separate, detached, and anonymouswhile watching the movie, but afterward

-they talk about it with friends and ex·

cbange opinions and judgments. Theyare once again members of particular so-

cial groups. Would one say that severalhundred or a thousand individuals homealone at n,lght, but all reading the samebook, constitutes a mass·?

One could argue, of course, that read·ing a book is a qualitatively different ex·perience from going to a movie. But thisleads precisely to the first damaging \Ull

biguity in the theory of the mass soclety.Two things are mixed up in that theory;



s THE THEORY OF MASS SOCIE'l'Y

JI judgment as to the quality of modernexperience-with much of which anysensitive individual would agree-and apresumed scientillc statement concerningthe disorganization of society created byindustrialization and by the demand of

the masses for equality. t is the second

of these statel)1ents with which this essay

quarrels, not the first.Behind the tbeory of social disorgani

zation lies a romantic notion of the pastthat sees society as baving once beenmade up of small organic: close-knitcommunities (called Gemelnschaften in

the terminology of tbe sociologists) thatwere sbattered by industrialism and modern life, and replaced by a large imper

sonal atomistic· society (called Ge.eU

•chaft which is unable to provide thebasic gratillcations and call forth theloyalties that the older communities

knew.

t is asserted that the United States is

an atomized society composed of lonely,

isolated individuals. One forgets the tru

ism expressed sometimes as a jeer that

Americans are a nation of joiners. There

are in the United States today at least200,000 voluntary organizations, associa

tions, clubs. societies. lodges. and fraternities with an aggregate (but obviously

overlapping) membersbip of close toeighty million men and women. In no

other country in the world. probably. isthere such a h;gh degree of voluntarycommunal activity. expressed sometimesin absurd rituals. yet often providing real

satisfactions for real needs.It is natural for the ordinary Ameri-

can; wrote Gunnar Myrdal. when hesees something that is wrong to feel notonly that there should be a law againstit, but also that an organization should beformed to combat it. Some of thesevoluntary organizations are pressure

195

groupi-business. farm. labor. veterans.trade ' associations. the aged. etc.. etc.

but thousands more are like the NationalAssociation for the Advancement of Colored People. the American Civil LibertiesUnion. the League of Women Voters. the

American Jewish Committee. the ParentTeachers Associations. local community

improvement groups. and so on. each ofwhich affords hundreds of individualsconcrete emotionally shared activities.

Equally astonishing are the number ofethnic group organizations in this country

carrying on varied cultural, social, andpolitical activities. The number of Irlsh.

Italian. Jewisb, Polish. Czech. Finnish.Bulgarian. Bessarabian. and other national groups. their hundreds of fraternal•communal. and political groups. each play

ing a role in the life of America, is staggering. In December 1954. for example.

when the lssue of Cyprus was first placedbefore the United Nations. the Justice for

Cyprus Committee. an organization ofAmerican citizens, according to its

statement. took a full-page advertisementin the New York Times t ) plead the

right of that small island to self-deter

mination. Among the groups listed in the

Justice for Cyprus C()mmittee were: the

Order of Ahepa. the Daughters of Penelope. thePan-Laconian Federation. theCretan Federation. the Pan-Me.sian Fed

eration, the Pan-Icarian Federation. thePan-Epirotlc Federation of America, the

Pan-Tbracian AsSociation. the Pan-ElianFederation of America. the DodecanesianLeague of America. the Pan-MacedonianAssociation of America. the Pan-Sarnian

Association, the Federation of StereaElias. the Cyprus Federation of America.the Pan-Arcadian Federation. the GAPA.

and the Federation of Hellenic OrganizatiODS.

We can be sure that if in a free world.the question of the territorial affiIiati )n of

Ruthenia were to come up before the



96

Uniteq Nations, dozens of Hungarian, Rumanian, Ukrainian, Slovakian, and Czech'organizations of American citizens wouldrush eagerly into print to plead the jus-,tice of the claims of their respective home-lands to Ruthenia.

EVen in urban neighborhoods, whereanonymity is presumed to Hourish, the

extent of local ties is astounding. Withinthe city limits of Chicago, for example,there are eighty-two community news-papers with a total weekly circulationof almost 1,000,000; within Chicago's,larger metropolitan area, there are 181.

According to standard sociological theory,these local papers providing news andgossip about neighbors should slowly de-cline under the pressure of the nationalmedia. Yet the reverse is true. In Chicago,the nwnber of such newspapers has in-

creased 165 per cent since 1910; in thoseforty years circulation has jumped 770per cent As sociologist Morris Janowitz,who studied these community newspapers, observed: If society were as impersonal, as self-centered and banen as de-scribed by some who are preoccupiedwith the one-way trend from Gemein-

schaft to Gesell.chaft seem to believe,the levels of criminality, social disorganization and psychopathology which socialscience seeks to account for would haveto be viewed as very low rather than(as viewed now) alarmingly high.

t may be argued that the existence ofsuch a large network of voluntary asso-ciations says little about the cultural levelof the country concerned. t may well be,as Ortega maintains, that cultural standards throughout the world have declined (in everything-architecture, dress,deSign?), but nonetheless a greater proportion of the population today participates in worth-while cultural activities.This has been ahoost an inevitable con-

comitant of the douhling-literally-of theAmerican standard of living over the last

_ _

DANIEL BELL

fifty yeafs. The rising levels of educationhave meant rising appreciation of culture. In the United States more dollars

are spent on concerts of cl ssic l music

than on basebaO. Sales of books havedoubled in a decade. There are over athousand symphony orchestras, and several hundred museums, institutes, and

colleges purchasing art n the UnitedStates today. Various other indices can hecited to show the growth of a vast middlebrow society. ,And in coming years, withsteadily increasing productivity and leisure, the United States will become evenmore actively a conswner of culture

It has been argued that the Americanmass society imposes an excessive con-

formity upon its memberS. But it is hardto discern who is conforming to what. TheNew Republic cries that hucksters are

sugar-coating the culture. The ationalReoiew, organ of the radical right,raises the banner of iconoclasm against theliberal domination of opinion-fonn.tionin our society. fortun decries the growthof organization man. Each of these tendencies exists, yet in historical perSpec-tive, there is probably less conformity toan over-all mode of conduct today thanat any time within the last half-centuryin America. True, there is less bohemianism than in the twenties (thoughincreased sexual tolerance), and less po-

litical radicalism than in the thirties(though the New Deal enacted sweepingreforms). But does the arrival at a political dead-center mean the establishment,too, of a ' dead nonn'? I do not think so.One would be hard put to it to find todaythe confonnity Main Street exacted ofCarol Kennicott thirty years ago. Withrising educational levels, more individualsare able to indulge a wider variety ofinterests. ( Twenty years ago youcouldn't sell Beethoven out of New York,reports a record salesman. Today we sellPalestrina, Monteverdi, Gabrielli, and



28 THE THEORY OF MASS SOCIETY

Renaissance and Baroque music in large

quantitieS. )

One hears, too, the complaint that di

vorce, crime. and violence demonstrate awidespread social disorganization in the

country. But the rising number of di

vorces . . . indicates not the disruption of

thefamily,

buta freer, more individualistic basis of choice, and the emergence of

the oompanionship marriage. And as re

gards crime . . . , there is actually much

e crime and violence (though more vi

carious violence through movies and TV.

and more windows onto crime, through

the press) than was the se twenty.fiveand Sfty years ago. Certainly, Chlcago,

San Francisoo, and New York were much

rougher and tougher cities in those years.

But violent crime, which is usually a

l o w e r ~ c l s s phenomenon, was then con·

.Wned within the ecological boundaries

of the slum; hence one can recall quiet,tree·lined, crime-free areas and feel thatthe tenor of life was more even in the

past. But a cursory look at the accounts

of those days the descriptions of the

gang wars. bordellos, and street-fighting

in San Francisco's Barbary Coast, New

York's Five Points, or Chicago's - First

Ward would show how much more vio·

lent in the past the actual life of those

cities was.

At t is point it becomes quite apparent

that such large-scale abstractions as the

mass society with the implicit diagnoses

of social disorganization and decay that

derive from them, are rather meaninglesswithout standards of comparison. Socialand cultural change is probably greater

and more rapid today in the UnitedStates than in any other country. but theassumption that social disorder and

anomie inevitably attend such change is

not borne out in this case.This may be owing to the singular fact

that the United States s probably the

Srst large SOCiety in history to have change

197

-and innovation huilt into its culture.

Almost alI human societies, traditionalistand habit-ridden as they have been and

still are, tend to resist change. The great

cHorts to industrialize underdeveloped

countries, increase worker mobility in

Europe, and broaden markets-so neces·

sary tothe

raising of productivity andstandards of living are again and again

frustrated by ingrained resistance to

change. Thus in the Soviet Union changehas been introduced only by dint of whole

sale coercion. In the United States a

culture with no feudal tradition; with a

pragmatic ethos, as expressed by JcHerson, that regards God as a workman ';

with a boundless optimism and a restless

eagerness for the new that has been bred

out of the original conditions of a huge,

richly endowed land-change, and the

readiness to change, have become the

norm. This indeed may be why thoseconsequences of change predicted by

theorists basing themselves on European

precedent find small con6rmation.

The mass society is the product of

change and is itself change. But the

th ory of the mass society alfords us _ o

view of the relations of the parts of the

society to each other that would enable us

to locate the sources of change. We may

not have enough data on which to sketch

an alternative theory, but I would argue

that certain key factors, in t is country

at least, deserve to be much more closelyexamined than they have been.

The change from - society once geared

to frugal saving and now impelled- to

spend dizzily; the break-up of family cap

italism, with the consequent impact on

corporate structure and political power;the centralization of decision-making, po

litically, in the state and, economically,

in a group of large corporate bodies; therise of status and symbol groups replacing

specillc interest groups-indicate that

new social forms are in the making, and



198

with them still greater changes n thecomplexion of 'life imder mass society,With these may ,well come new statusanxieties-aggravated by the threats 1

war-changed character structures, and~ W moral tempers

The moralist may have his reserva

tions or give approval-as some see in thebreak-up 01 the family the loss of a sonreeof essential values, while others see in thenew, freer marriages a healthier form ofcompanionsbi[>-but the singular lact is

that these changes emerge n a societythat is now providing one answer to the

great challenge posed to Western-andnow world-society over the last two hundred years: how, within the framework ofIreedom, to increase the living standardsof the majority of people, and at the sametime ma intain or raise cultural levels

American society, for all its shortcomings,

Its speed, its commercialism, its corrup-

DANIEL BELL

tion, still, I ' believe, shows us the mosthumane way

The theory of the mass society no longerserves as a description of Western so-

ciety, but as an ideology of romantic pratest against contemporary society, his is

a time when other areas of the globe

are beginning to fonow in the paths 01the West, which may e all to the good

as lar as material things are concerned;

but many 01 the economically underdeveloped countries, especially n Asia, have

caught up the shopworn sell-critical

Western ideologies 01 the 19th oentury

and are using them against the West, to

whose materialism they oppose theirspirituality. What these Asian and our

own intellectuals fail to realize, perhaps,

is that one may be a thoroughgoing criticof one's own society without being ,an

enemy of its promises



.

THE THEORY OF MASS SOCIETY

Renaissance and Baroque music in large

quantitieS. )

One hears, too, the complaint that di·

vorce, crime, and violence demonstrate a

widespread social disorganization in the

coUntry. But the rising number of di

vorces indicates not the disruption of

the family, but a freer, more individualis

tic basis of cboice, and the emergence ofthe companionship marriage. And as re-

gards crime , there is actually much·

l ss crime and violence (though more vi·

carious violence through movies and TV.

and more -windows ooto crime, through

the press) than was the case twenty-five

and fifty years ago. Certainly, Chicago,

San Francisco, and New York were much

rougher and tougher cities in those years.

But violent crime, which is usually a

lower-class phenomenon. was then coo

tained within the ecological boundaries

of the slum; hence one can recall quiet,tree-lined, crime-free areas and feel that

the tenor of life w s mor even n thepast. But a cursory look at the accounts

of those days the descriptions of the

gang wars, bordellos, and street-fighting

in San Francisco's Barbary Coast, New

York's Five Points, or Chicago's , First

Ward would show how much more vio-

lent in the past the actual life of those

cities was.

At this point it becomes quite apparent

that mch large-scale abstractions as the

mass society with the implicit diagnoses

of social disorganization and decay thatderive from them, are rather meaningless

without standards of comparison. Social

and cultural change is probably greater

and more rapid today in the United

States than in any other country, but theassumption that social disorder andnomie inevitably attend such change is

not borne out n this case.

This may be owing to the singular fact

that the United States is probably the

first large society n history to have change

197

and fnnovation built into its cultur .

Almost ; Jf human societies, traditionalist

and habit-ridden as they have been and

still are, tend to resist change. The great

efforts to industrialize underdeveloped

countries, increase worker mobility nEurope, and broaden markets-so neces

sary to the raising of productivity and

standards of living are again and againfrustrated by ingrained resistance to

change. Thus in the Soviet Union changebas been introduced only by dint of whole

sale coercion. In the United States a

culture with no feudal tradition; with a

pragmatic ethos, as expressed by Jeffer

son, that regards od as a workman ;

with a boundless optimism and a restless

eagerness for the new that has been bred

out of the original conditions of a huge,

richly endowed land-change, and the

readiness to change, have become the

norm. This indeed may be why thoseconsequences of change predicted bytheorists basing themselves on European

precedent find small confirmation.

The mass society is the product of

change and is itself cbange. But the

theOf J of the mass society affords us .noview of the relations of the parts of the

society to each other that would enable us

to locate the sources of change. We may

not have enough data on which to sketch

an alternative theary, but I would argue

that certain. key factors, in this country

at least, deserve to e much more closely

examined than they have been.The cbange from a society once geared

to frugal saving and now impelled' to

spend dizzily; the break-up of family cap

italism, wit the consequent impact on

corporate structure and political power;

the centralization of decision-making, po-litically, in the state and, economically,

in a group of large corporate bodies; the

rise of status and symbol groups replacing

specific interest groups-indicate that

new social forms are in the making, and

1



198

with them still greater changes in thecomplexion of ' life under mass SocietyWith. these may . well come new status

aIllCieties-aggravated by the threats of

war--ehanged character structures, andnew moral tempers.

The .moralist may have his reserva

tions 1 give approval-as some see in thebreak.up of the family the loss of a sourceof essential values, while others see in thenew freer marriages a healthier form of

companionshlp-but the singular fact ·is

that these changes emerge in a society

that- s now providing one answer to the

great challenge posed to Western-andnow world-society over the last two bundred years: bow, within the framework of

freedom, to increase the living standardsof the majority of people, and at the sametime maintain or raise cultural levels.

American society, for all its shortcomings,

its speed, its commercialism: its corrup-

DANIEL BELL

tion, still, I believe; sbows us the mosthumane way .

The theory of the mass society no longerserves as a description of Western so-ciety, but as an ideology of romantic pro

test against contemporary society. This is

a time when other areas of the globe

are beginning to foDow in the paths ofthe West, whlcb may e all to the good

as far s material things are concerned;

but many of the economicaDy underde

veloped countries, especially in Asia, have

caught up the shopworn seU-critical

Western ideologies of the 19th century

and are using them against the West, to

whose materialism they oppose their

'spirituality. What these Asian and our

own intellectuals fail to realize, perhaps,

is that one may be a thoroughgoing critic

of one's own society withont being an

enemy of its promises.

mass society daniel bell

Documents