More from this authorAssembly Required
Eunoia Solstice“Assembly,” noun. First of all, a gathering, all of us here together. Convocation. Parliament. The act of putting something together: assembly required. The thing that is put together, parts considered as a whole: a mechanical assembly. Many years ago, through their observations of “ordinary” Americans (this was the late 40s, so we’re mostly talking about white middle class men), David Riesman1 and his colleagues came to believe that a new sort of person was emerging whose character was qualitatively different than the sort of person who conquered the West and created the Industrial Revolution. The old style person was “inner-directed”: his2 sense of self derived mostly from his accomplishments, what he was able to do in the world. The new model was observed to be “other-directed”: his sense of self derived mostly from how his peers regarded him. The first sort of person had a life narrative: where he started, what he did. Was he ho
