ABSTRACT
The social relations that distinguish a society tend to acquire cultural legitimacy and psychological support. This chapter attempts to delineate cultural and psychological properties which distinguish our four types of society, and to suggest how the cultural and psychological properties of mass society fail to provide firm, support for democratic institutions. The four types of society are democratic society, pluralist society, communal society and totalitarian society. By divorcing people from larger social purposes, mass society also tends to separate people from themselves. An individual who acquires a feeling of social usefulness and social status in the society finds it easier to form a positive conception of himself. The psychological type characteristic of mass society provides little support for liberal democratic institutions. Just as mass society may contain many anti-democratic movements, even as its dominant organization is not anti-democratic; so mass society may contain many totalitarian personalities, even as its dominant psychological type is not totalitarian.
