Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can ... - WordPress.com

twentieth century, changing foreverwho we are and whom we admire, howwe act at job interviews and what welook for in an employee, how we courtour mates and raise our children. Americahad shifted from what the influentialcultural historian Warren Susmancalled a Culture of Character to a Cultureof Personality—and opened up aPandora’s Box of personal anxietiesfrom which we would never quiterecover.In the Culture of Character, the idealself was serious, disciplined, and honorable.What counted was not so muchthe impression one made in public ashow one behaved in private. The wordpersonality didn’t exist in English untilthe eighteenth century, and the idea of“having a good personality” was notwidespread until the twentieth.73/929