PROTEAN MAN
21
and-narrow specialization in psychological as well as in intellectual
life, and to reluctance to let in any "extraneous" influences. But I
would emphasize that where this kind of constricted or "one–
dimensional" self-process exists, it has an essentially reactive and
compensatory quality. In this it differs from earlier characterological
styles it may seem to resemble (such as the "inner-directed" man
described by Riesman, and still earlier patterns in traditional society).
For these were direct outgrowths of societies which then existed, and
in harmony with those societies, while at the present time a constricted
self-process requires continuous "psychological work" to fend off
protean influences which are always abroad.
Protean man has a particular relationship to the holding of ideas
which has, I believe, great significance for the politics, religion, and
general intellectual life of the future. For just as elements of the
self can be experimented with and readily altered, so can idea systems
and ideologies be embraced, modified, let go of and reembraced, all
with a new ease that stands in sharp contrast to the inner struggle
we have in the past associated with these shifts. Until relatively
recently, no more than one major ideological shift was likely to occur
in a lifetime, and that one would be long remembered as a significant
individual turning-point accompanied by profound soul-searching
and conflict. But today it is not unusual to encounter several such
shifts, accomplished relatively painlessly, within a year or even a
month; and among many groups, the rarity is a man who has gone
through life holding firmly to a single ideological vision.
In one sense, this tendency is related to "the end of ideology"
spoken of by Daniel Bell, since protean man is incapable of enduring
an unquestioning allegiance to the large ideologies and utopian
thought of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One must be
cautious about speaking of the end of anything, however, especially
ideology, and one also encounters in protean man what I would
call strong ideological hunger. He is starved for ideas and feelings that
can give coherence to his world, but here too his taste is toward new
combinations. While he is by no means without yearning for the
absolute, what he finds most acceptable are images of a more frag–
mentary nature than those of the ideologies of the past; and these
images, although limited and often fleeting, can have great influence
upon his psychological life. Thus political and religious movements,
as they confront protean man, are likely to experience less difficulty
