RIESMAN CONSIDERED
549
honorable uneasiness, a generous measure of propItIatIOn. Invariably
after an exhortation in one direction, we are reminded of the great
value mankind has found in taking the opposite path. Trailing this
mind so soundly opinionated and expressive on the .whole, you wonder
about those vigilant glances into the enemy corner, that tense alertness
which wants to startle and pacify at the same time. Perhaps the trouble
is that Riesman is going with too young a crowd; he is forty-five and
never likely to be whole-heartedly happy in the company of youth
and confidence, even though this youthful, consuming, money-free time
we live in is his interesting destiny.
In addition to the chronological displacement which makes Ries–
man's thought sometimes puzzling, he is confusing because of his quite
singular need to be effective in the most simple meaning of the term.
He likes to select his "truth" according to the occasion, obeying in this
odd way the law of supply and demand. Like a therapist whose duty
is to persuade and guide, now he tries this line and then another, follow–
ing the patient's moods. "But it is not enough to know the audience;
one must also know
their
context. They may be so buffeted by their
adversaries that they need, at least temporarily, to have their prejudices
confirmed rather than shaken. For instance, girl students at some of our
liberal universities need occasionally to be told that they are not utterly
damned if they discover within themselves anti-Negro or anti-Semitic
reactions--else they may expiate their guilt by trying to solve the race
question in marriage." Riesman's desire to lead back to the barn that
rare, mulish girl bent upon a
mesalliance
seems a little over-anxious.
What parents, friends, relatives, society, expediency insist upon in such
urgent terms need not be taken upon himself by a busy sociologist.
"What may on the surface appear to me as my courageous choice
of an unorthodox and unpopular position may turn out on closer ex–
amination to be a form of exhibitionism. Or I may be more conciliatory
than is warranted because I want to be liked." It is hard to knoW' how
to judge a thinker whose intellectual positions are so profoundly modi–
fied by "psychology," who treats his own opinions as
if
they were those
of a character in a novel he was writing. Or again, standing in the
center of the stage, watching the audience assemble, he waits for the
feel of the thing and then chooses his rubbery mask, comic one way,
tragic upside down. Solid success, effective therapy, animated delivery–
all of this is achieved, but frequently at the expense of some of the
brilliance that undoubtedly might be there otherwise. Riesman has
genuine vitality and, of course, remarkable gifts. But if you make
yourself honey the flies will eat
yo~.
