McClintock's Essay

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Toward a Place for Study in a World of Instruction

Robbie McClintock

Institute for Learning Technologies
Teachers College — Columbia University
December 2000


 

Section 10 — The Future
¶ 90
 		 Certainly the cultural atmosphere crackles with intimations of departures at once imminent and immanent. The bestsellers speak of "future shock" and an intriguing greening of America. But the one is a breathless compilation of every harbinger of change held together with slogans, not ideas, and assured of proving partly prophetic by virtue of repeating uncritically most every prophecy that an energetic journalist can collect. [ 74 ] And the other charts a wistful, wonderful revolution of ideas that perhaps may come about, but again, provided only that it can draw sustaining energies from the hard facts of the historic flux. [ 75 ] Still it is to these that we must look.
 
¶ 91
 		 Prophets of environmental crisis point to what may be compelling realities, and if the worst of their projections prove true, the effects on our civic institutions would be immense. [ 76 ] In large part, however, ecological imbalances are portents of future changes in the physical environment, and whatever adaptations men will have to make in their mores and institutions will have to be carried out under the aegis of other historic forces that may already be coming into play within the social realm. Education occurs primarily within that realm, in the company of men; nature provides but a backdrop, sometimes fresh, but often grim. Are there historic forces newly operative in the social sphere that have a direct, palpable influence on the education of men, their character formation, their intentional shaping of their personalities? 
 
¶ 92
 		 So far, probably the most important attempt to indicate a basic change in the pattern of character formation in the West is The Lonely Crowd by David Riesman, et al. In some ways the book is a period piece; writing in the late forties, its authors took the conformist, who proved so prevalent in the fifties, to be a more enduring type than he now seems to have been. Be that as it may, what is important here is the general structure of the argument, which purported to find a demographic basis for long-term shifts in patterns of character formation. Thus, Riesman connected the historic transition from tradition-directed to inner-directed and finally to other-directed character with the so-called S-curve that population growth has followed in the post-Renaissance West. As Riesman saw it, population in the West passed in the seventeenth century from a long period of general stasis, through a sustained period of rapid growth, and entered in the mid-twentieth century into an indefinite time of incipient decline. He then connected his three basic character types to these demographic conditions: tradition-directed men characterized a static population, inner-directed men dominated a rapidly growing population, and other-directed men would proliferate among an incipiently declining population. [ 77 ] 
 
¶ 93
 		 A number of questions might be raised about the empirical accuracy of these correlations. In particular, one might ask whether in fact the point of incipient population decline has been reached in the West; for population has increased about 40 percent in both the United States and Europe since The Lonely Crowd appeared. One might also ask why, if these correlations are correct, did the highly tradition-directed character of medieval man flourish during the era of dynamic population growth from 1100 to 1300. But more is amiss than such quibbles would indicate. Accepting the broad outline of Riesman's demographics and valuing his ideal character types as useful, illuminating constructs, one nevertheless finds that no compelling causal connection has been explicated between the demographic situation at one or another time and the purported dominance of the appropriate character type. And when hard reasons were given for expecting other-directed men to typify the present day, the reasons concerned the nature of urban life, the mass media, a consumption economy, peer-group politics, and patterns of schooling and child rearing, all of which are, at most, indirectly demographic. [ 78 ]
 
¶ 94
 		 Yet the intention was a good one; in the demographic situation one finds the basic, gross influences affecting the character formation of every person. To come to terms with these effects, however, one needs a more refined measure than simple changes in over-all population. What matters for character formation is not primarily a change in the total number of people, but a change in the number of opportunities each person has for day-to-day contact with others, a change, that is, in his chance for company. A man both acquires and displays character — his beliefs, skills, thoughts, and tastes — through involvements of some sort with other people; hence patterns of character formation can change as options for interpersonal contact change. To be sure, the range of opportunities open to one man for dealing with other men vary in part according to changes in population, or more precisely, to changes in the density of population. But another factor is equally important for determining the chances for intimate relations between man and man; this factor is the ease or difficulty with which men living at a certain time and place can move, travel, and communicate. Today, in some locales the density of rural population has declined from what it was in the Middle Ages; yet the peasant who now may have a telephone, television, and auto has far greater opportunities for becoming involved with other people than did his medieval predecessor, a serf of the manor who could make the day-long trek to the neighboring village only with his lord's permission.
 
¶ 95
 		 Through most of Western history, each person, be he lowly or exalted, had limited opportunities for day-to-day contact with others. Population was sufficiently sparse and communication sufficiently difficult that each person had to choose his companions from a finite number of possibilities, some tens of thousands, and many sides of his potential character, which he might have liked to cultivate, he had to leave undeveloped for want of anyone to join him in the endeavor. Hence, in the past the demographic trend that was significant for character formation would vary between three basic conditions; the finite number of options for interpersonal contact open to each might be rising, static, or falling, depending on the combined changes in population density and ease of communication. If opportunities for companionship were finite and static for several generations, a tradition-directed type might well become common, for few changes would confront individuals and groups with new experiences and hence custom could be consolidated. During a long period in which men's choices were limited but rising, inner-directed types might flourish, for tangible growth in a man's possibilities would call forth innovations, optimism, an inner confidence that with drive, concentration, and systematic effort an aspiring individual could accomplish significant achievements. Finally, when men found that their opportunities to commune with their fellows were both restricted and falling, they would tend towards pessimism, conflict, and despair, as happened in the Roman twilight and in the years following the Black Death.
 
¶ 96
 		 During the past century, however, these situations have ceased to be pertinent to character formation throughout most Western societies. And here, cheerless old Henry Adams, with his reflections on "The Rule of Phase Applied to History," gave an important clue that must be added to meditations on demographic S-curves, for in recent decades each man's opportunities for contact with others have gone through a change of phase that is analogous to the change of water from fluid to steam. [ 79 ] Consider a crude measure of the number of options that a man has for daily involvement with others; let us call it "the opportunity factor." Thus, o = d p r2, the number of people from among whom a particular person can choose his day-to-day companions equals the density of population per square mile times pi times the square of the distance that he or his communication can travel in a day. Let us see what the opportunity factor can tell us about the historic conditions influencing character formation for the average European.
 
¶ 97
 		 population density for the whole of Europe was approximately thirty-six people per square mile in 1750, 49 in 1800, 70 in 1850, 111 in 1900, 149 in 1939, and 172 in 1966. [ 80 ] Let us say roughly that the average man could travel eighteen miles per day in 1750; with some improvement of roads and canals we could put the figure at twenty-two miles for 1800; by 1850 with short rail lines beginning to be built the distance might jump to forty miles; with the filling out of the railways and the effective introduction of the telegraph, a man's range in 1900 might have trebled to 120 miles; in 1939, with the telephone and the automobile not yet in full popular use and air travel only in its early stages, the figure should probably be put at no more than 250 miles; but by 1966, despite the devastation of World War II, with cars, telephones, and televisions being articles of mass consumption and jet travel open to most, the average man could easily cover over 1,000 miles in a day. [ 81 ] 
 
¶ 98
 		 With these figures we can find the opportunity factor for each period. In 1750, the average European had the physical possibility of choosing his daily contacts from among roughly 36,800 other persons; in effect, therefore, he formed his character within the confines of a substantial provincial town. In the next fifty years his options doubled, becoming some 74,500; thus his personality could then develop in a sphere equivalent perhaps to a thriving provincial capital. During the next half century the increase in opportunity quickened, multiplying almost five times to 352,000; in this way the average person had options equivalent to those then offered by the grim new industrial cities. By 1900 the opportunity factor jumped significantly and multiplied fourteen times to 5,020,000; the average man lived in a realm a bit more populous than London of the day. On the eve of World War II there had been another six-fold expansion to 29,200,000; each man's world was then coextensive with a middling nation. Then, in the shortest period, much of which was occupied with a most destructive war, the range of choice confronting the average European increased more than in any other period, multiplying almost twenty times to 540,000,000; thus, each man could choose his companions from roughly the population of Europe, east and west.
 

 

 

 

Endnotes
Note 74 Alvin Toffler. Future Shock. New York: Random House, 1970. If one can grit one's teeth and bear with Toffler's incredible abuse of language, the book can serve as an interesting compendium of curious signs of the time. [Back]
Note 75 Charles A. Reich. The Greening of America. New York: Random House, 1970, passim, and esp. Ch. XI, pp. 299-348. [Back]
Note 76 For an excellent application of ecological analysis to problems of planning the proper use of the land, see Ian L. McHarg. Design with Nature. Garden City, N.Y.: The Natural History Press, 1969. McHarg touches on, but does not fully face, some of the profound questions of public power that will have to be raised as planning becomes more and more ecologically exact. [Back]
Note 77 David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and Ruel Denney. The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character, abridged ed., Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1953, pp. 17-53. [Back]
Note 78 Ibid.,pp.100-4, 120-132, 151-186, 196-200, 210-217. [Back]
Note 79 Henry Adams, "The Rule of Phase Applied to History," in Henry Adams. The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma. New York: Capricorn Books, 1958, pp. 261-305. Cf. Adams. The Autobiography of Henry Adams. New York: The Modern Library, 1931, which will become recognized as a classic study of education if we discover the importance of study in education. [Back]
Note 80 These figures are from the Rand McNally Cosmopolitan World Atlas. New York: Rand McNally and Co., 1968, p. 140. [Back]
Note 81 These figures are my own rough estimates, and although as absolute numbers they are rather arbitrary, the progression they define is fairly accurate, I believe. [Back]