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Capitalist Society, Social Character, and Communication Attitude Dr Richard J Varey, Director, BNFL Corporate Communications Unit, The Management School, University of Salford, Salford, England M5 4WT. Tel: +44 161 745 5884. Fax: +44 161 745 5442. E-mail: [email protected] Capitalist Society, Social Character, and Communication Attitude Abstract A historical perspective shows that the advent of capitalism had a profound effect on the thinking, feeling and resulting communicative actions of Western man by altering his social character. The contemporary communication crisis is explained by examining the prevailing social character. It is suggested that only now are we reaching a turning point in our cultural development (post-modernity?) in which communicative relationships will rise in place of the shackles of competition, isolation, alienation, selfishness, having, and consuming. The author draws on various perspectives in considering socio-economic, psychological, and ideological factors to show that relatedness is rooted in the social character structure. A psychology of social character, rather than that of the communication process, illuminates a growing problem of conservatism in contemporary society. We just don’t relate by communicating. Conscious (radical) corporate communication can only occur if we communicate consciously as citizens in a particular New World context which promotes autonomy and cooperation. A new socio-economic condition of corporate community is suggested. Introduction We fool ourselves that our communication behaviour is about sharing and understanding, not realising that our capitalistic assumptions drive us to behave in ways we are not aware of. There may be contradictions between a person’s real interests and those imposed on him by society. The rise of individualism has brought forth a me-centred philosophy which presents us with an apparent paradox. The new religion of ‘me’ must operate within a society which requires thinking about ‘us’. The ‘marketing’ character which has grown out of the marketisation of social life in the industrialising/scientific eras is a socially patterned defect which has consequences for the self and our attitudes to our communicative actions. Contemporary man displays his communication attitude when asked to define ‘communication’. Almost always information dissemination or exchange is proffered in explanation, as if information is possessed and is to be sold in the marketplace. All too few of us are willing to communicate about communication. This unconsidered striving for “better communication” or “more communication” (meaning opportunities to get what I want, irrespective of the desires and needs of others) is perpetuated because we now live in an up-tight business culture which worships unreflective hyper-activity and pragmatism (Hampden-Turner, 1970) and its got worse since then in the ‘information explosion’ of the 1990s. Examination of the origins and development of industrial society from the village to the “global village” (McLuhan, 1967) allows discernment of two revolutions in the social character of man (Riesman et al, 1961). Fromm (1942) sees social character as resulting from basic experiences and mode of life. Society requires a degree of uniformity, coherence, conformity, otherwise one cannot really speak of “a society”. Hobhouse (1924) observed that we have shifted from a functionally undifferentiated society to one of differentiation with some degree of integration. This has required the development of diversity and refinement in social communication. As society has ‘progressed’ there has been a gradual succession to dominance of three modes of conformity which have been identified by Riesman’s research. Each of these has resulted in a particular dominant social character type. Social character can be thought of as a more or less permanent socially and historically conditioned organisation of an individual’s drives and satisfactions. Put another way, each of us has a ‘mindset’ with which we approach the world and people, including ourselves. In order to function as a part of a society, a person becomes adjusted to their social role at the price of giving up part of their own will, originality and spontaneity. The idea of work and success as the main aims of life in Western society were able to become powerful and appealing to modern man on the basis of his aloneness and doubt upon being freed from domination and exploitation of the elite during medieval times. Has the person proper become an appendage to his/her socio-economic role?, asks Fromm (1947, p. 128). The biggest cost to the self of the advent of capitalistic social organisation is the loss of authentic relating by the adoption of a “marketing character” or selfpromoting persona which is not genuine in a social milieu in which everything, including the self, is for sale and rational calculation becomes pervasive in all spheres of life, with attendant depersonalisation of social relations, particularly in work. The resulting superficial attachment constitutes detachment in the sphere of deeper emotions. The ideas by which contemporary man explains his actions .. self-deception, sales talk ... are the kind of insincerity which Riesman (1961) describes as the state of mind of a man who habitually believes his own propaganda. Hampden-Turner (1970) observes that “when human beings meet and interact both may part wiser and emotionally richer”. Sadly and frustratingly, this often is not the case. No dialogue arises when one party is intent on control and merely desires to change the other, whilst resisting change in the self. When we don’t get the expected result from our communicative acts we tend to blame ‘communication breakdown’ and call for more and better communication. Perhaps it is not communication that is defective, but rather why we communicate to rather than with each other. Communication need not always be, and often should not be, merely a means to an end. Early Language Development There is little evidence of major differences in grammatical complexity found by anthropologists, pointing to the probable antiquity of human communication (Ardrey, 1972). Altman (cited in Ardrey, p. 89) defines a society as a group of beings in which communication carries understanding, this being possible only when there is mutual understanding of signals. Perhaps a biological basis can be traced for the development of communication. Hominid society was essentially bipolar in nature. There was functional segregation, physical separation, and disparity of styles, routines and goals. Things had to be told when not experienced. The hunting group saw the wide world whilst women, infants, and juveniles knew only the ‘home place’. Language was required for learning of others’ experiences. A simple language serves to integrate sub-groups, whilst non-communication between those who speak the same language led to the invention of the notion of strangers. As language developed communication capabilities determined the form of social structure possible. Now and in the future, society will determine the form of communication. Impact of Capitalism on Social Character In our ‘advanced’ Western societies (increasingly merging into a single society as McLuhan’s predicted ‘global village’ becomes a reality), a particular character type has been forged by the rise of capitalism and can be a dominant orientation in the person. The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (1942) has studied the striving for, and attempts at escape from, that single most prized human state - freedom. Along the way he has illuminated our understanding of the economic relations which are characteristic of the individual in a capitalist society. The rise of democracy, argues Fromm, has set us free, but has also created a society in which we feel isolated from other people, where relationships are impersonal, no specific and permanent kind of relatedness is developed due to the changeability of the market created, and where insecurity replaces a sense of belonging. Riesman (1961) points to the dilemma facing modern man: he is alienated from others and is afraid of close contact with another and equally afraid to be alone and have no contact. Powell (1969), a Jesuit Priest, asks why we are afraid to tell others who we are? Levels of interpersonal communication range from cliché conversation, in which we don’t mean what we say and do not wish for a commitment (“How are you?” is not a request for information), through to ‘peak communication’ (c.f. Maslow’s self-actualisation), in which there is openness and honesty (each feels mutual empathy). Much of modern communication lies at the cliché level and is not real communication. At best we reveal something of our ideas, judgements, and decisions, but only a strictly censored version which is thought to be acceptable to others. Has man always had this dual sense of freedom and isolation? The work of Riesman, Glazer and Denney (1961) supposes the gradual succession to dominance of particular modes of conformity. A revolution occurred when the Renaissance period moved into the Industrial Age and a further revolution is now upon us as we move into the post-industrial age (the Information Age, PostModern Age, the New Age, etc.) Hobhouse (1924) (cited in Sprott, 1966) identifies changing themes of social relationship in the evolution of society. Early society was dominated by relation of birth, and social structure was of kinship. Until relatively recently structure was authoritarian in which one or a few people have authority over others. Contemporarily real prospects of citizenship are perhaps emerging as the bulk of the population may achieve articulate expression as computing and telecommunications technologies create a dynamic communicating community (Halal, 1996). We will discuss each mode of conformity as a social character type (Fromm, 1942; Riesman et al, 1961). Man’s first social organising was for agriculture, hunting, and fishing. Individuals had clear functional relationships to others, and much cultural development was through slow adaptation of ritual and routine. There was perhaps no sense of development in The Age of Tradition as handicraft skills and rules were passed from generation to generation. Control came from fear of shame - this is the era of tradition-direction. The Renaissance and Reformation period is seen as the dawn of the sense of the individual. This Age of Production emphasises manufacture and products with attendant social division and stratification. People are different - there is a developing self-consciousness and drive for individuality. Skills become those of the craft and property an extension of the self. There is a rise in acquisitive conspicuous consumption. Work is a mode of relating oneself to physical objects and ideas and only indirectly to people. Self-reliance is thought possible and desirable and striving is for the achievement of this. Thinking becomes expansionist and long-term and self-approval and achievement become widely valued. There is a sense of scarcity. Communications and services become primary, yet there is a large number of unproductive consumers. People become shallower, friendlier, unsure of themselves and their values. Work becomes central to most people’s lives and is experienced as technological and intellectual processes rather than as human co-operation. There is widespread desire to master resource exploitation. Conformities are externalised in dress, etc. We became inner-directed, striving to “amount to something”. “In more primitive societies, and in medieval Europe, there appears to be far more uniformity than there is today in our own society” (Sprott, 1966, p. 138). Indications are that we are now beginning to experience (to create) a second revolution towards other-directed conformity to society. Craftsmanship has given way to consumership. Many of us now look to others for guidance on what experiences to seek and how to interpret them - symbolism rules. Our relations with the outer world and with our self are mediated by the flow of mass communication. Only this week film actor Bruce Willis announced at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival that the written word is dead as reviews from critics did not have meaning. He pronounced that today no one pays attention to written reviews because most people get their information from the cinema and the spoken word (Connell, 1997). We play act to a wider audience in a form of compulsive adjustment. Manipulative skills develop with our anxiety and there is superficial intimacy in the Age of Consumption (of words and images) driven by the surety of abundance. The modern world other-directed social character has arisen through the widespread adoption of capitalism, which in turn has been ‘bought’ as the route to personal freedom. We have become people-minded, but not in a healthy way. This newer industrial revolution is visibly concerned with techniques of communication and control. The tool is symbolism. The aim: some observable response from other people. In a society increasingly dependent on the manipulation of people, smooth negotiation has become the principal ability of the successful (hence the enduring popularity of classes in self-presentation skills and the soaring sales of self-help books). Competition will never be entirely co-operative so long as we are competing for places of marginal differentiation (Riesman, 1961, p. 139). We jostle for these places by seeking the respect and affectation of those we want as our peers: “obliged to conciliate or manipulate a variety of people, the other-directed person handles all men as customers who are always right”..... “the other-directed person tends to become merely his succession of roles and encounters and hence to doubt who he is or where he is going”..... “a multi-face policy that he sets in secrecy and varies with each class of encounters” (Riesman et al, 1961, p. 139). However, we should not imagine that this social strategy belongs only to otherdirected people: “Many inner-directed people are successful manipulators of people; often, their very innerdirection makes them unaware of how much they do manipulate and exploit others. Nevertheless, for manipulating others, there is a somewhat greater compatibility between characterological otherdirection and sensitivity to others’ subtler wants” (p. 128). Berger (1966) suggests that a person is perceived as a repertoire of roles, each one properly equipped with a certain identity: “the self is no longer a solid, given entity that moves from one situation to another. It is rather a process, continuously created and re-created, held together by a slender thread of memory”. In the capitalistic society each person works for himself, individualistically, at his own risk, and not primarily in co-operation with others. But he needs others, as customers, as employees, as employer. Men cannot live without some sort of cooperation with others - communication is essential to our modern living. And yet, points out biologist Richard Dawkins (in Axelrod, 1984), co-operation among people does not arise naturally. At present individuality and individualism are highly prized. But their value is highly ambiguous, representing liberation from authority which prevents autonomous development of the person, but built on trivial differences (the marketing personality must be free of all peculiarities - of individuality - to be acceptable in the market), and seen as a possession, and allowing manipulation through advertising which creates the illusion of free choice (Fromm, 1993). Fromm argues that individualism is not the root cause of the failure of modern culture, but rather this is due to people being not concerned enough with the interest of the real self, but rather with a fictitious idea of selfinterest (Fromm, 1947, p. 139). The economic relations are regulated, in a capitalist society, by commodity and labour markets. The individual, primarily alone and self-sufficient, enters into economic relations with others as a means to an end - to buy and sell - to give and take. The individual enters into these relations with other ‘objects’ - and always as a means to his end. He develops a cynical, detached attitude and looks upon others as objects to be used and manipulated. This social character has emerged since the destruction of the medieval world in which the feudal economic system was based on the principle of co-operation and provide regimentation through rules which curbed competition for the good of common enterprise in a corporative system. Human individuation - the destruction of all ‘primary bonds’ and the medieval world - is being completed in our era. The rise of capitalism has had a profound psychological effect on the individual in shaping his personality. Man has become an individual who has completely emerged from the world surrounding him, to be seen and to feel as an isolated ‘atom’. If private enterprise prevails as the basis for social order, then everyone is a potential competitor and relationships become hostile and estranged. At the same time the rise of the ‘Protestant work ethic’ has provided an internal compulsion to work. Indeed: “capitalism could not have been developed had not the greatest part of man’s energy been channelled in the direction of work” (Fromm, 1942, p. 80). With the rise of competitive endeavour as the primary force in society, so came the rise of conscious self-interest and egotism, which were not to be found in the medieval society of clearly defined social role and tradition. As the ‘individual’ emerged so did new ways of relating to others: “the concrete relationship of one individual to another has lost its direct and human character and has assumed a spirit of manipulation and instrumentality” (Fromm, 1942, p. 102). The egotist is selfish, wanting everything for himself, and has no pleasure in giving, in sharing, in solidarity, in co-operation, and is suspicious of others who might take from him, and fearful of uncertainty. His strength comes from what he has and the security of keeping it (Fromm, 1993). The idea that egotism is the basis of the general welfare of man is the principle on which competitive society has been built (Fromm, 1947). Yet, the selfish person has no genuine concern for others and judges everyone and everything in terms of its usefulness to him. He searches for symbiotic attachment in relationships which are not based on mutual respect and integrity but two persons depending on each other because they are incapable of depending on themselves. The relationship between competitors has to be based on mutual indifference, as duty is replaced in all social and personal relations by the laws of the market. At the same time, economic life eliminates the concrete differences of personality, and by treating all as the same, the essence of individuality, our uniqueness, is stifled. Personal relationships suffer from an absence of concentration (Fromm, 1993). We do not grasp anymore than the surface of another’s personality and we are poor judges of character. We detect only what he says, how he behaves, his position, and dress. We observe only the persona he shows us (that is, the image he hopes that others have of himself) and do not penetrate below the surface to the person. Others do not present themselves but their saleable part. It seems that we are afraid to know anyone fully, including ourselves, so we do not concentrate on people. Individuality interferes. We keep or distance, wanting to know each other only as much as is necessary to live together, to co-operate, and to feel secure. We desire surface knowledge and find knowledge gained by concentrating disturbing. Human relationships have developed a superficial character. People present as interchangeable commodities rather than as themselves, and everyone is engaged in the same battle of competition and striving for success. Man becomes alienated from his craft as a means to sustain his livelihood. The modern manufacturer is not primarily interested in what he produces; he produces essentially in order to make a profit, and what he produces depends essentially on the market which promises that the investment will be profitable. The employer and employee both use each other for the pursuit of their own economic interests. Their relationship is one in which both are means to an end. There is no interest outside this mutual usefulness. The same instrumentality is the rule in the relationship between the businessman and his customer. The customer is an object to be manipulated, not a concrete person whose aims the businessman is interested to satisfy. Personal relations also have this character of alienation. Instead of being relations between human beings, they assume the character of relations between things. I have discussed the nature of the impact of instrumental relationships on communication elsewhere (Varey, 1997). Man has become a commodity. He does not only sell commodities, he sells himself and feels himself to be a commodity - he sells his ‘personality’ - it is the market which decides the value of human qualities. If a quality is not in demand it has no value. Thus the feeling of the ‘self’ is merely an indication of what others think of the person. Value is not constituted by human qualities or powers, but by success in selling them. Self-esteem depends on conditions (of the market) beyond our control. Value is exchange value rather than use value. The new ‘freedom’ of capitalism, freedom from the dictates of the master, brought the individual isolation and turned him into the instrument of overwhelmingly strong forces outside himself - man has made himself an instrument of the economic machine - a tool for industrial progress. Indeed, freedom is never merely the possession of security. He turned to possession of property to back up the weakened insecure self. Along with this came prestige and power, enabling man to proclaim “I am what I have” and “I am what I do”, since “ I am who I am” carried little weight (Fromm, 1976). Modern industrial society has driven many people into a ‘having’ mode which concentrates on material possessions, the possession of habits, accustomed thoughts and status and power, and is based on greed, envy and aggressiveness. This striving for material possessions to define the self results in behaviour which is alienating. Man thinks that he is acting for his own self-interest when actually his main concern is money and success, and his most important human potentialities (to be himself) are unfulfilled - he loses himself in the process of seeking what is supposed to be best for him. In the present era other-direction is coming to dominate over tradition-direction and inner-direction as the principal mode of societal conformity. In this mode acquisition diminishes and there is an orientation towards the non-economic side of life, such as pursuit of happiness and peace of mind. There is manipulation of the self in order to manipulate others, primarily for the attainment of intangible assets such as affection. Interpersonal effort and tolerance have become commodities (Riesman, p. 153). But there is a price to pay: “the other-directed person has no clear core of self to escape from; no clear line between production and consumption; between adjusting to the group and serving private interests; between work and play” (p. 157). There is a tension between the public self, the social self, and the private self which self has most value in the market? Irrational doubt consumes modern man so long as he does not progress from negative freedom (freedom from external domination but also from a world which gave a sense of security and reassurance) to positive freedom (to be an individual and to realise the potentiality of the self without losing the connection to the world). The doubt will not disappear until man overcomes his isolation and his place in the world is meaningful in terms of his human needs. Attempts to rid oneself of this doubt can be seen in: compulsive striving for success; the belief that unlimited knowledge of facts can answer the quest for ‘certainty’; submission to a leader who assumes the responsibility for ‘certainty’. But such behaviour merely eliminates the awareness of doubt. The doubt remains and guides our hand. Industrial society offers many people no satisfactory roles as the basis for (self) identification (Perlman, 1966). Such people may become uninterested in life, have no commitment to society, no sense of values because nothing available to them is of any value (to them). In consequence they possess no acceptable (to them) selfimage. Genuine meeting or contact requires identification, but this is beyond almost all of the role relationships of everyday life (Ruddock, 1969, p. 110). “the need to come to terms with corrupt role systems in our time imposes distortions on us all and leaves us alienated from our basic human potentialities” (p. 18). Western society has become so competitive that life is seen by many as a struggle in which one tries to out-do one’s fellow man (p. 19). Rousseau (1947) argued that society was the enemy of man, and Ruddock concurs: “we feel suffocated or exhausted by the roles we have created for ourselves and for each other” (p. 34). These structures and role-systems are based on fragmentation and specialisation, and they block personal growth and result in alienation. Roles appear increasingly elaborated in our ‘advancing’ societies. “man becomes further alienated from his human potentialities and from other people, in trying to fulfil the role demands of a culture based on competitive commercial and bureaucratic values” (Ruddock, 1969, p. 40). What is needed is a return to the self by moving out of normal roles, to live as we are inwardly disposed to achieve authenticity. Social Character and Communication Attitude The ascendance of science is symptomatic of our striving to perfect command over nature. This ‘science of actions’ takes solace in technology to the exclusion of relationships. Observe how “soft-side” issues are still considered diversionary or even subversionary by some. McLuhan (1967) lays the blame for our overriding passion for uniform, sequential, continuous, rational communication with the invention of typography (p. 24). Fromm (1942) asserts that thinking is not exclusively intellectual, but in dealing with ethical, philosophical, political, psychological and social problems, is greatly determined by the personality structure of the person who thinks. The social character comprises that part of the personality which channels human energy as a productive force in a given social order. This necessarily impacts on communication attitude, not least because meaning depends on character structure and may be entirely different among people. Fromm (1942) speaks of a socially patterned defect of which most are not aware. We experience ourselves as a commodity with exchange value. Our skills and expertise are not enough in our modern industrial world - a ‘personality’ factor is decisive if we are to be in demand, to be wanted, to be liked, to be valued by others. One experiences oneself as simultaneously the seller and the commodity to be sold. The aim is not the living of life and the pursuit of happiness for their own sakes but a striving to be saleable by paying close attention to others’ signals. The pseudo self is an agent, according to Fromm (1942, p. 177) who represents the role a person is supposed to play, in their thinking, feeling and willing, but who does so under the name of the self. This notion is echoed in recent work on ‘emotional labour’ where social acting suppresses or fakes real emotions in order to create a synthetic display, for example of friendliness or compassion, resulting in depersonalisation of interactions (see Mann, 1997, for a comprehensive study of this emotional control in communication roles). We have no firm ego - “I am as you desire me”. We have become other-directed. We have ‘evolved’ a pseudo self - the feeling of “I Am Who I Am” has become replaced by the experience of the self as the sum total of expectations others have about me - of the person I think I am supposed to be. I sell myself and this has overridden, for most, the bond of social brotherhood. But this is not deviancy. Fromm calls it a ‘pathology of normalcy’. The individual’s ideal of normalcy may contradict the aim of the full realisation of himself as a human being. For society as a whole this is fine. To maintain coherence, social character training provides people who ‘want’ to act in the way they have to act as members of the society. The modern identity crisis is caused by our identity resting on participation in corporations and other huge institutions. There is no authentic self. We have become selfless instruments of economic progress and the pursuit of material gain. Man has become alienated and estranged from himself within our consumer-oriented industrial society. Our relations to our self and to others become flimsy when we lose emotional ties and lack attachment. Our manipulative intelligence becomes that of the automaton (the cybernetic person) mobilised to achieve exchange. Charles Darwin was able to recognise that he developed a scientific, alienated intellect. Karl Marx defined the ‘alienated character’ with emotional naiveté and a sense of isolation due to the underdevelopment of emotional response to the world. Much modern interpersonal communication is overly promotional (marketing communication) aimed at influencing, through persuasion, others to our values and goals. Expressive and relational components are often neglected in pursuit of control and in forcing others to adopt one’s message (Steinberg and Miller, 1975). Sumberg (1962) warned of the dangers arising from citizens being replaced by consumers. Man and his communication inevitably become impoverished. Private social meetings between people are little markets where one exchanges one’s need to talk about oneself with one’s desire to be listened to for the need of others who seek the same opportunity (Fromm, 1993). We may try to communicate as we think others expects us to, resulting in pseudo communication - we may even believe that we have sharing and understanding as our purpose - but this may merely be a means to an end. Our interpretation of the expectations of our society now determine why and how we communicate: “The sincere man is the one who believes his own propaganda” (Riesman, 1961). As an example, the commercialisation of friendliness has driven many of us to pseudo behaviour. Take the pizza restaurant in 1997. The baseball-capped server is ‘friendly’ because they have been told to be so and because it may result in a tip. The customer expects friendliness and will pay for it, and may complain or exit if this is found lacking. Friendliness has become a commodity and the seller’s task is to effect a convincing act in return for profit which arises from the quality of the performance - a modern day busker in a more secure setting, perhaps? In the Middle Ages almost the only form of communication was correct written (ordinary) language (literary rhetoric). Ordinary language was the channel of communication for most people. The modern age requires of us a speedy, economical and efficient pragmatism (Aranguren, 1967). We have witnessed the impoverishment of language and its reduction to a mere statement of behaviour. Instrumental communication has swamped attempts at expressive and consummatory communication. Hall (1961) provides a further clue to our crisis of communication. He suggests that man experiences things on three different levels - there are three types of awareness. The Formal level of culture concerns beliefs, the Informal level concerns adaptation and personal style, and the Technical level is concerned with analysis. People cannot tolerate existing in two systems at the same time (p. 116); they have to approach life at any given moment from one of these three levels of integration but not more than one. While one will dominate, all three are present in any given situation. Perhaps so much non-communication results from discrepancies between participants who are operating on different levels? Two distinct orientations towards others may be discerned. Who am I? How can I get what I want? My first concern is with me I don’t trust you. I do things my way - the way they’ve always been done, and if you don’t immediately like it that way, I’ll try to persuade you that you’re wrong - I’m right. If I cannot pacify you I will ignore you. I win at your expense - life is a competition - a battle of wits. The needs of others are seen as potential losses to me. Who am I? How do my actions match others’ needs and wants? My world is us. How can I get what I want by helping others to get what they want? Where can I invest in achievement? Marketing is a state of mind - look at a situation from others’ point of view. In the spirit of co-operation and the belief that we can all win (get what we want), and that I get what I want by helping you to get what you want, I need to know your needs so that I can match what I do and how to what you want and expect. We can help each other to solve our practical problems of doing our jobs in a satisfying way. Our dialogue allows us to interchange values. The needs of others are seen as opportunities. The New World - Society at a Turning Point I am not so foolish as to predict the immediate death of capitalism - its promise remains too alluring. However, ‘advanced’ societies seem to be reaching a turning point and we may well find that the assumptions of capitalistic development are further challenged and the notion of capitalism may be re-defined. Fromm (1942) felt that the modern industrial system may be able to provide the means for an economically secure life for everybody, and also: “to create the material basis for the full expression of man’s intellectual, sensuous, and emotional potentialities” (p. 205). Yet, modern man is dependent upon industrial society. Inner-direction is no longer feasible for most people. Capitalist society has made major progress. Manipulation of people has widely taken the place of their brutalisation. Even persuasion is preferred to force. The religion of success is crumbling and has become a facade which no longer satisfies. But what is required now is ‘autonomy’ (Riesman et al, 1961). The autonomous social character as a mode of adaptation is capable of conforming to behavioural norms of the individual’s society, but is free to choose whether to conform or not. This differs from authoritarianism and automaton behaviour in as much as in the former the person admires authority and submits to it and at the same time wishes others to submit to him (authority as a superiorinferior relationship), whereas in the latter there is compulsive conformity to accepted patterns (Fromm, 1942). The autonomous person accepts that social and political authority is always conditional: they can co-operate with others in action while maintaining the right to private judgement, and they are at heart questioners. Capra (1982) speaks at length of a nearing cultural transformation - a profound shift in our social institutions, values, and ideas. This he sees as essential to the development of civilisations, and suggests that social indicators for this shift are to be seen in “the symptoms of our current crisis” (p. 7). A sense of alienation, and increase in mental illness, violent crime, social disruption, and increased interest in religious cultism, are all to be seen in the past 20-30 years. Social structures and behaviour patterns so rigid that the society can no longer adapt to changing situations, will lead to social disintegration because the society will no longer be able to carry on the creative process of cultural evolution. The loss of flexibility in a disintegrating society is accompanied by a general loss of harmony among it s elements, which inevitably leads to the outbreak of social discord and disruption (p. 9). If Capra is right we are about to experience the transition, a turning point, to a new order within the next few decades. Waldrop (1997, p. 84) has recently observed that: “We are at that very point in time when a 400 year-old age is dying and another is struggling to be born - a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced. Ahead, the possibility of the regeneration of individuality, liberty, community, and ethics such as the world has never known, and a harmony with nature, with one another, and with the divine intelligence such as the world has never dreamed”. Halal (1996) would argue that the shift has already started. Halal (p. 206-208) assesses the emerging the knowledge society as an evolutionary development characterised as: leadership through participation which recognises freedom; a shift from materialism to idealism, valuing self-esteem; technology of information systems for dealing with complexity. Halal (p. 97) is optimistic about the driving forces unleashed by the developing communication technologies: “Disparate nations, social diversity, and other fragmented subsystems (will be synthesised) into a balanced, integral, functioning whole”. Barnatt (1997) speaks of a future mindset. This “future mindset” will be required for long-term business success in our future world which will be created by the way we think about possibilities in order to create our future ‘reality’. Barnatt challenges us to embrace a new mindset as we leave the mechanical age of craft and production (concerned with the technicalities of what to do? and how?), into an automated and mediated era of ideas (concerned with why?) requiring clear aspirations and imagination. Yet modern man applies his thinking mostly in grasping information quickly in order to manipulate for success. Quick mental adaptation is prized above reasoning. Knowledge, like man, has become a commodity with exchange value in the market: consider university students who do not want to learn to learn, only to get the degree as a means to a new job; or, managers who withhold information supposedly as a source of power. A Mind Set for the New World We are all subject to culturally patterned secular strivings, suggests Fromm (1947, p. 48). These “frames of orientation and devotion”, whilst not quite a religion (there is no God), constitute systems of thought which try to give an answer to the human quest for meaning and to man’s attempt to make sense of his own existence. For some, this means striving for the attainment of success and prestige. Others may seek conquest and domination. All seem to deal with the same basic need to which they attempt to offer answers. In considering the types of personality engendered by our modern industrial civilisation, Berger (1966), reflecting on the work of Thomas Luckmann, reassures us that not all people scheme, plot and deliberately put on disguises to fool others. Role-playing is generally unreflected and unplanned (“almost automatic”). Our psychological needs for consistency of self-image ensure this. Few people are capable of the degree of psychological control that deliberate deception requires. Most are sincere - they believe their own act. Sincerity is the consciousness of the man who is taken in by his own act (p. 127). Whilst we live in an advanced society to which we need to feel that we belong, this may simply be an illusion. Individuation constructs individuals - this fragments society and brings into doubt the notion of the achievement of social cohesion. Unless, that is, we can each be brought under control by allowing ourselves to escape freedom through submission to all-powerful authoritarianism or automation conformity. Either way, we lose our self in our ‘freedom’ and cease to communicate authentically. As Riesman reassuringly contends: “modern industrial society has driven great numbers of people into anomie, and produced a wan conformity in others, but the very developments which have done this have also opened up hitherto undreamed-of possibilities for autonomy. As we come to understand our society better, and the alternatives it holds available to us, I think we shall be able to create many more alternatives, hence still more room for autonomy” (1961, p. 257). Waddington (1948) observed that science and marketing are simply attitudes of mind to the world - ways of living with specific ideals and values. The postmodern problem is one of organisation of social life, since the problem of production is solved by industry and science. Now we should turn our energies to the task of living. In a marketised world we have turned ourselves into instruments for purposes outside ourselves. We experience and treat ourselves as commodities. We have become things and others around us have become things. If we can replace profit and power motives with a desire for being, sharing, understanding - what would our world be like? If our marketing character could be superseded by a truly productive, loving social character - what would our world be like? Our herd instinct leads us to believe that the road we are on must lead to a goal since everyone else is on it. What is that goal? Is it valuable? Do we really want it? This alternative world would require that we can relate to people through love and self-esteem and to objects and the world generally through active participation in creative work. We would have to reinvent assumptions about how people communicate and work together (Barnatt, 1997) - indeed, about why people communicate. Communication is not studied in schools of management (Salford University hosts one exception) so managers do not learn much about communication except through personal experience. Getting along socially was key to the early development of the human species - to make organised hunting, finding shelter, and food gathering work, members of such groups had to be sympathetic to the feelings of others - they were ‘natural psychologists’ (Evans and Deehan, 1990). Today we seek to understand the behaviour of our relatives, enemies, friends - in terms of our own behaviour - the key is introspection. Insights into our own drivers lead us to believe that other people will respond in the same way. Humphrey (1986) suggested that we need an “inner eye” which looks in on our own brain and tells us why and how we’re acting in the way that that we are, providing a plain man’s guide to our own minds. Emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1996) is the non-intellectual factors which govern personal and professional competence: awareness of own feelings as they are experienced; empathy; awareness of what others are feeling; managing own moods to stay motivated and optimistic even when there are setbacks; good interaction with others. Power superseded duty as a social goal, and is only now giving way to meaningfulness. Effectiveness will derive from competence in information processing rather than memorising. Fromm (1976) argues that an alternative ‘being’ mode of existence is possible, based on shared experience and productive activity and rooted in love and the ascendancy of human values over material values. Hampden-Turner (1970, p. 135) argues that the root problem is man’s psychosocial infancy. There are too many of us thinking in conservative mode, and psycho-social learning is required to develop autonomous reasoning and imagining. What we need, Hampden-Turner stated emphatically and with much supporting evidence, is ‘creative rebellion’. We need to enlighten the anomic, dogmatic mind which is fat too comfortable with: hierarchical relationships; ritualised and repetitive statements of conformity; the belief that words and dogmas in themselves have authoritative meaning which surpasses the intentionality of the utterer and that ‘Great Truths’ are ascendant; a preference for one-way over two-way communication; unanimous acclaim of object symbols; short psychological distance. All of these traits block development. HampdenTurner’s model for a continuous process of psycho-social development explains the communication problem of contemporary society (p. 37): “Man exists freely through the quality of his PERCEPTION, the strength of his IDENTITY, and the synthesis of these into his anticipated and experienced COMPETENCE. He INVESTS this with intensity and authenticity in his human environment by periodically SUSPENDING his cognitive structures and RISKING himself in trying to BRIDGE THE DISTANCE to the other(s). He seeks to make a SELF CONFIRMING, SELF TRANSCENDING IMPACT upon the other(s) and through a dialectic achieve a HIGHER SYNERGY. Each will attempt to INTEGRATE the FEEDBACK from this process into mental matrices of developing COMPLEXITY”. If only this were the model of human communication process and intent! Too many so called ‘communication’ events do not have these aims or methods. We should fix the process before we seek to build instrumental “communication skills”. Langer’s (1989) concept of ‘mindfulness’ (similar to the Buddhist Satipatthana requiring that things are not done in a distracted or less than wide-awake and aware manner (Fromm, 1993)) suggests that dysfunctional behaviour is based on unnecessarily limiting thought processes resulting in compulsion or automation. Mindful thinking requires that the person: Creates new categories for new information about the perceived world, rather than trying to force it to fit existing categories; Is open to the new information which is added to his/her expanding, and increasingly differentiated, information base; Is aware that there is usually more than one perspective on a situation, i.e. is sensitive to context; Pays attention to the process before its outcomes. If a “New World” is upon us: what is its origin? Who is in the driving seat? Where will it take us? Where do we want to go? How does it differ from the ‘old world’ we wish to leave behind? Can we hope for a spiritual society as does Aranguran or Halal? Dare we hope that we are entering a “communication age”? Is it going to be ‘better’, or only different? If the ‘cybernetic religion’ can be replaced by a radical-humanistic spirit by becoming autonomous, then will the New World we get be the one we want? Do we know what we want? How will we better understand our society? Sprott (1966, p. 69) proffered citizenship in an inclusive society in which more people have influence and a more conscious notion of belonging together. Aristocratic dominance on the basis of property always leads to conflict as attempts to balance the power between the rich and less rich always results in the substance of power falling into the hands of the former. Because social character internalises external necessities and thus harnesses human energy for the task of a given economic and social system (Fromm, 1942, p. 243), we must alter our dominant social character for the new reality (psychological evolution) we can invent - if we are inclined to do so. If we are to return to a Communication Age, then we must re-learn the art of communication and apply this profound wisdom to the new context. Perhaps this can only be realised in Fromm’s ‘democratic socialism’ or Halal’s ‘corporate community’ - Fromm’s state of natural democracy based on solidarity rather than antagonism. In the meantime - live your own life!: “To dream of the person you’d like to be is to waste the person you are” (The Body Shop, catalogue, November 1996). Bibliography Aranguren, J L. (1967) Human Communication, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ardrey, R. 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