Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1902-3._ Washington, 1907.
(4) Steinmetz, Andrew. _The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims, in
all Times and Countries, Especially in England and in France._ London,
1870.
(5) Thomas, W. I. "The Gaming Instinct," _American Journal of
Sociology_, VI (1900-1901), 750-63.
(6) O'Brien, Frederick. _White Shadows in the South Seas._ Chap. xxii,
pp. 240-48. [Memorable Game for Matches in the Cocoanut Grove of Lano
Kaioo].
III. CONFLICT GROUPS
A. _Gangs_
(1) Johnson, John H. _Rudimentary Society Among Boys._ "Johns Hopkins
University Studies in Historical and Political Science," 2d series, XI,
491-546. Baltimore, 1884.
(2) Puffer, J. Adams. _The Boy and His Gang._ Boston, 1912.
(3) Sheldon, H. D., "Institutional Activities of American Children,"
_American Journal of Psychology_, IX (1899), 425-48.
(4) Thurston, Henry W. _Delinquency and Spare Time._ A study of a few
stories written into the court records of the City of Cleveland.
Cleveland, Ohio., 1918.
(5) Woods, Robert A., editor. _The City Wilderness._ A settlement study
by residents and associates of the South End House. Chap. vi, "The Roots
of Political Power," pp. 114-47. Boston, 1898.
(6) Hoyt, F. C. "The Gang in Embryo," _Scribner's_, LXVIII (1920),
146-54. [Presiding justice of the Children's Court of the city of New
York.]
(7) _Boyhood and Lawlessness._ Chap. iv, "His Gangs," pp. 39-54. Russell
Sage Foundation, New York, 1914.
(8) Culin, Stewart. "Street Games of Boys in Brooklyn, N.Y.," _The
Journal of American Folklore_, IV (1891), 221-37. [For observations on
gangs see p. 235.]
(9) Adams, Brewster. "The Street Gang as a Factor in Politics,"
_Outlook_ LXXIV (1903), 985-88.
(10) Lane, W. D. "The Four Gunmen," _The Survey_, XXXII (1914), 13-16.
(11) Rhodes, J. F. "The Molly Maguires in the Anthracite Region of
Pennsylvania," _American Historical Review_, XV (1909-10) 547-61.
(12) Train, Arthur. "Imported Crime: The Story of the Camorra in
America," _McClure's_, XXXIX (1912), 82-94.
B. _Sects_
(1) Nordhoff, Charles. _The Communistic Societies of the United States
from Personal Visit and Observation._ Including chapters on "The Amana
Society," "The Separatists of Zoar," "The Shakers," "The Oneida and
Wallingford Perfectionists," "The Aurora and Bethel Communes." New York,
1875.
(2) Gillin, John L. _The Dunkers: A Sociological Interpretation._ New
York, 1906. [Columbia University dissertation, V, 2.]
(3) Milmine, Georgine. _The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History
of Christian Science._ New York, 1909.
(4) Gehring, Johannes. _Die Sekten der russischen Kirche, 1003-1897._
Nach ihrem Ursprunge und inneren Zusammenhange dargestellt. Leipzig,
1898.
(5) Grass, K. K. _Die russischen Sekten._ I, "Die Gottesleute oder
Chlüsten"; II, "Die weissen Tauben oder Skopzen." Leipzig, 1907-9.
(6) Lea, Henry Charles. _The Moriscos of Spain._ Their conversion and
expulsion. Philadelphia, 1901.
(7) Friesen, P. M. _Geschichte der alt-evangelischen mennoniten
Brüderschaft in Russland (1789-1910) im Rahmen der mennonitischen
Gesamtgeschichte._ Halbstadt, 1911.
(8) Kalb, Ernst. _Kirchen und Sekten der Gegenwart._ Unter Mitarbeit
verschiedener evangelischer Theologen. Stuttgart, 1905.
(9) Mathiez, Albert. _Les origines des cultes révolutionnaires._
(1789-92). Paris, 1904.
(10) Rossi, Pasquale. _Mistici e Settarii._ Studio di psicopatologia
collettiva. Milan, 1900.
(11) Rohde, Erwin. _Psyche: Seelencult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der
Griechen._ Freiburg, 1890.
C. _Economic Conflict Groups_
(1) Webb, Sidney and Beatrice. _Industrial Democracy._ London, 1897.
(2) ----. _The History of Trade Unionism._ (Revised edition extended to
1920.) New York and London, 1920.
(3) Commons, John R., editor. _Trade Unionism and Labor Problems_,
Boston, 1905.
(4) ----. _History of Labor in the United States._ 2 vols. New York,
1918.
(5) Groat, George G. _An Introduction to the Study of Organized Labor in
America._ New York, 1916.
(6) Hoxie, Robert F. _Trade Unionism in the United States._ New York,
1917.
(7) Marot, Helen. _American Labor Unions._ By a member. New York, 1914.
(8) Carlton, Frank T. _Organized Labor in American History._ New York,
1920.
(9) Levine, Louis. _Syndicalism in France._ 2d rev. ed. of _The Labor
Movement in France._ New York and London, 1914.
(10) Brissenden, Paul Frederick. _The I.W.W., A Study of American
Syndicalism._ New York, 1919. [Bibliography.]
(11) Brooks, John Graham. _American Syndicalism; the I.W.W._ New York,
1913.
(12) ----. _Labor's Challenge to the Social Order._ Democracy its own
critic and educator. New York, 1920.
(13) Baker, Ray Stannard. _The New Industrial Unrest._ Reasons and
remedies. New York, 1920.
(14) Commons, John R. _Industrial Democracy._ New York, 1921.
(15) Brentano, Lujo. _On the History and Development of Gilds and the
Origin of Trade Unions._ London, 1870.
D. _Parties_
(1) Bluntschli, Johann K. _Charakter und Geist der politischen
Parteien._ Nördlingen, 1869.
(2) Ostrogorskïi, Moisei. _Democracy and the Organization of Political
Parties._ Translated from the French by F. Clarke with a preface by
Right Hon. James Bryce. New York and London, 1902.
(3) Lowell, A. Lawrence. _Governments and Parties in Continental
Europe._ 2 vols. Boston, 1896.
(4) Merriam, C. E. _The American Party System._ In press.
(5) Haynes, Frederick E. _Third Party Movements since the Civil War,
with Special Reference to Iowa._ A study in social politics. Iowa City,
1916.
(6) Ray, P. O. _An Introduction to Political Parties and Practical
Politics._ New York, 1913.
(7) Bryce, James. _The American Commonwealth._ 2 vols. New rev. ed. New
York, 1911.
(8) Hadley, Arthur T. _Undercurrents in American Politics._ Being the
Ford Lectures, delivered at Oxford University, and the Barbour-Page
Lectures, delivered at the University of Virginia in the spring of 1914.
New Haven, 1915.
(9) Lowell, A. Lawrence. _Annual Report of the American Historical
Association, 1901._ 2 vols. "The Influence of Party upon Legislation in
England and America" (with four diagrams), I, 319-542. Washington, 1902.
(10) Beard, Charles A. _Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy._ New
York, 1915.
(11) Morgan, W. T. _English Political Parties and Leaders in the Reign
of Queen Anne, 1702-1710._ New Haven, 1920.
(12) Michels, Robert. _Political Parties._ A sociological study of the
oligarchical tendencies of modern democracy. Translated by Eden and
Cedar Paul. New York, 1915.
(13) Haines, Lynn. _Your Congress._ An interpretation of the political
and parliamentary influences that dominate law-making in America.
Washington, D.C., 1915.
(14) Hichborn, Franklin. _Story of the Session of the California
Legislature._ San Francisco, 1909, 1911, 1913, 1915.
(15) Myers, Gustavus. _The History of Tammany Hall._ 2d ed. rev. and
enl. New York, 1917.
(16) Roosevelt, Theodore. _An Autobiography._ New York, 1913.
(17) Platt, Thomas C. _Autobiography._ Compiled and edited by Louis J.
Lang. New York, 1910.
(18) Older, Fremont. _My Own Story._ San Francisco, 1919.
(19) Orth, Samuel P. _The Boss and the Machine._ A chronicle of the
politicians and party organization. New Haven, 1919.
(20) Riordon, William L. _Plunkitt of Tammany Hall._ A series of very
plain talks on very practical politics, delivered by ex-Senator George
Washington Plunkitt, the Tammany philosopher, from his rostrum--the New
York County Court House boot-black stand. New York, 1905.
E. _Nationalities_
(1) Oakesmith, John. _Race and Nationality._ An inquiry into the origin
and growth of patriotism. New York, 1919.
(2) Lillehei, Ingebrigt. "Landsmaal and the Language Movement in
Norway," _Journal of English and Germanic Philology_, XIII (1914),
60-87.
(3) Morris, Lloyd R. _The Celtic Dawn._ A survey of the renascence in
Ireland, 1889-1916. New York, 1917.
(4) Keith, Arthur. _Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point
of View._ London, 1919.
(5) Barnes, Harry E. "Nationality and Historiography" in the article
"History, Its Rise and Development," _Encyclopedia Americana_, XIV,
234-43.
(6) Fisher, H. A. "French Nationalism," _Hibbert Journal_, XV (1916-17),
217-29.
(7) Ellis, H. "The Psychology of the English," _Edinburgh Review_,
CCXXIII (April, 1916), 223-43.
(8) Bevan, Edwyn R. _Indian Nationalism._ An independent estimate.
London, 1913.
(9) Le Bon, Gustave. _The Psychology of Peoples._ London, 1898.
(10) Francke, K. "The Study of National Culture," _Atlantic Monthly_,
XCIX (1907), 409-16.
(11) Auerbach, Bertrand. _Les races et nationalités en
Autriche-Hongrie._ Deuxième édition revisée. Paris, 1917.
(12) Butler, Ralph. _The New Eastern Europe._ London, 1919.
(13) Kerlin, Robert T. _The Voice of the Negro 1919._ New York, 1920. [A
compilation from the colored press of America for the four months
immediately succeeding the Washington riots.]
(14) Boas, F. "Nationalism," _Dial_, LXVI (March 8, 1919), 232-37.
(15) Buck, Carl D. "Language and the Sentiment of Nationality," _The
American Political Science Review_, X (1916), 44-69.
(16) McLaren, A. D. "National Hate," _Hibbert Journal_, XV (1916-17),
407-18.
(17) Miller, Herbert A. "The Rising National Individualism,"
_Publications of the American Sociological Society_, VIII (1913), 49-65.
(18) Zimmern, Alfred E. _Nationality and Government._ With other wartime
essays. London and New York, 1918.
(19) Small, Albion W. "Bonds of Nationality," _American Journal of
Sociology_, XX (1915-16), 629-83.
(20) Faber, Geoffrey. "The War and Personality in Nations," _Fortnightly
Review_, CIII (1915), 538-46. Also in _Living Age_, CCLXXXV (1915),
265-72.
TOPICS FOR WRITTEN THEMES
1. The History of Conflict as a Sociological Concept
2. Types of Conflict: War, the Duello, Litigation, Gambling, the Feud,
Discussion, etc.
3. Conflict Groups: Gangs, Labor Organizations, Sects, Parties,
Nationalities, etc.
4. Mental Conflicts and the Development of Personality
5. Sex Differences in Conflict
6. Subtler Forms of Conflict: Rivalry, Emulation, Jealousy, Aversion,
etc.
7. Personal Rivalry in Polite Society
8. Conflict and Social Status
9. The Strike as an Expression of the Wish for Recognition
10. Popular Justice: the History of the Molly Maguires, of the Night
Riders, etc.
11. The Sociology of Race Prejudice
12. Race Riots in the North and the South
13. War as an Action Pattern, Biological or Social?
14. War as a Form of Relaxation
15. The Great War Interpreted by Personal Documents
16. Conflict and Social Organization
17. Conflict and Social Progress
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. How do you differentiate between competition and conflict?
2. Is conflict always conscious?
3. How do you explain the emotional interest in conflict?
4. In your opinion, are the sexes in about the same degree interested in
conflict?
5. In what way do you understand Simmel to relate conflict to social
process?
6. What are the interrelations of war and social contacts?
7. "Without aversion life in a great city would have no thinkable form."
Explain.
8. "It is advantageous to hate the opponent with whom one is
struggling." Explain.
9. Give illustrations of feuds not mentioned by Simmel.
10. How do you distinguish between feuds and litigation?
11. What examples occur to you of conflicts of impersonal ideals?
12. What are the psychological causes of war?
13. "We may see in war the preliminary process of rejuvenescence."
Explain.
14. Has war been essential to the process of social adjustment? Is it
still essential?
15. What do you understand by war as a form of relaxation?
16. How do you interpret Professor James's reaction to the Chautauqua?
17. What is the rôle of conflict in recreation?
18. Is it possible to provide psychic equivalents for war?
19. What application of the sociological theory of the relation of
ideals to instinct would you make to war?
20. How do you distinguish rivalry from competition and conflict?
21. What bearing have the facts of animal rivalry upon an understanding
of rivalry in human society?
22. What are the different devices by which the group achieves and
maintains solidarity? How many of these were characteristic of the
war-time situation?
23. In what way is group rivalry related to the development of
personality?
24. How does rivalry contribute to social organization?
25. What do you understand by Giddings' distinction between cultural
conflicts and "logical duels"?
26. Have you reason for thinking that culture conflict will play a
lesser rôle in the future than in the past?
27. To what extent was the world-war a culture conflict?
28. Under what circumstances do social contacts make (a) for conflict,
and (b) for co-operation?
29. What has been the effect of the extension of communication upon the
relations of nations? Elaborate.
30. What do you understand by race prejudice as a "more or less
instinctive defense-reaction"?
31. To what extent is race prejudice based upon race competition?
32. Do you believe that it is possible to remove the causes of race
prejudice?
33. In what ways does race conflict make for race consciousness?
34. What are the different elements or forces in the interaction of
races making for race conflict and race consciousness?
35. Is a heightening of race consciousness of value or of disadvantage
to a racial group?
36. How do you explain the present tendency of the Negro to substitute
the copying of colored models for the imitation of white models?
37. "In the South, the races seem to be tending in the direction of a
bi-racial organization of society, in which the Negro is gradually
gaining a limited autonomy." Interpret.
38. "All racial problems are distinctly problems of racial
distribution." Explain with reference to relative proportion of Negroes,
Chinese, and Japanese in certain sections of the United States.
39. Why have few or no race riots occurred in the South?
40. Under what circumstances have race riots occurred in the North?
FOOTNOTES:
[206] Adapted from William I. Thomas, "The Gaming Instinct," in the
_American Journal of Sociology_, VI (1900-1901), 750-63.
[207] Adapted from a translation of Georg Simmel, _Soziologie_, by
Albion W. Small, "The Sociology of Conflict," in the _American Journal
of Sociology_, IX (1903-4), 490-501.
[208] Adapted from a translation of Georg Simmel, _Soziologie_, by
Albion W. Small, "The Sociology of Conflict," in the _American Journal
of Sociology_, IX (1903-4), 505-8.
[209] Adapted from William A. White, _Thoughts of a Psychiatrist on the
War and After_, pp. 75-87. (Paul B. Hoeber, 1919.)
[210] From G. T. W. Patrick, "The Psychology of War," in the _Popular
Science Monthly_, LXXXVII (1915), 166-68.
[211] Adapted from Henry Rutgers Marshall, _War and the Ideal of Peace_,
pp. 96-110. (Duffield & Co., 1915.)
[212] Adapted from William H. Hudson, "The Strange Instincts of Cattle,"
_Longman's Magazine_, XVIII (1891), 393-94.
[213] Adapted from George E. Vincent, "The Rivalry of Social Groups," in
the _American Journal of Sociology_, XVI (1910-11), 471-84.
[214] Adapted from Franklin H. Giddings, "Are Contradictions of Ideas
and Beliefs Likely to Play an Important Group-making Rôle in the
Future?" in the _American Journal of Sociology_, XIII (1907-8), 784-91.
[215] From Robert E. Park, Introduction to Jesse F. Steiner, _The
Japanese Invasion_. (A. C. McClurg & Co., 1917.)
[216] From Robert E. Park, "Racial Assimilation in Secondary Groups," in
_Publications of the American Sociological Society_, VIII (1913), 75-82.
[217] Adapted from Alfred H. Stone, "Is Race Friction between Blacks and
Whites in the United States Growing and Inevitable?" in the _American
Journal of Sociology_, XIII (1907-8), 677-96.
[218] Karl Groos, _The Play of Man_, p. 213. (New York, 1901.)
[219] _Supra_, p. 50.
[220] _The Dial_, LXVII (Oct. 4, 1919), 297.
CHAPTER X
ACCOMMODATION
I. INTRODUCTION
1. Adaptation and Accommodation
The term _adaptation_ came into vogue with Darwin's theory of the origin
of the species by natural selection. This theory was based upon the
observation that no two members of a biological species or of a family
are ever exactly alike. Everywhere there is variation and individuality.
Darwin's theory assumed this variation and explained the species as the
result of natural selection. The individuals best fitted to live under
the conditions of life which the environment offered, survived and
produced the existing species. The others perished and the species which
they represented disappeared. The differences in the species were
explained as the result of the accumulation and perpetuation of the
individual variations which had "survival value." Adaptations were the
variations which had been in this way selected and transmitted.
The term _accommodation_ is a kindred concept with a slightly different
meaning. The distinction is that adaptation is applied to organic
modifications which are transmitted biologically; while accommodation is
used with reference to changes in habit, which are transmitted, or may
be transmitted, sociologically, that is, in the form of social
tradition. The term first used in this sense by Baldwin is defined in
the _Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology_.
In view of modern biological theory and discussion, two modes of
adaptation should be distinguished: (a) adaptation through variation
[hereditary]; (b) adaptation through modification [acquired]. For the
functional adjustment of the individual to its environment [(b) above]
J. Mark Baldwin has suggested the term "accommodation," recommending
that adaptation be confined to the structural adjustments which are
congenital and heredity [(a) above]. The term "accommodation" applies
to any acquired alteration of function resulting in better adjustment
to environment and to the functional changes which are thus
effected.[221]
The term accommodation, while it has a limited field of application in
biology, has a wide and varied use in sociology. All the social
heritages, traditions, sentiments, culture, technique, are
accommodations--that is, acquired adjustments that are socially and not
biologically transmitted. They are not a part of the racial inheritance
of the individual, but are acquired by the person in social experience.
The two conceptions are further distinguished in this, that adaptation
is an effect of competition, while accommodation, or more properly
social accommodation, is the result of conflict.
The outcome of the adaptations and accommodations, which the struggle
for existence enforces, is a state of relative equilibrium among the
competing species and individual members of these species. The
equilibrium which is established by adaptation is biological, which
means that, in so far as it is permanent and fixed in the race or the
species, it will be transmitted by biological inheritance.
The equilibrium based on accommodation, however, is not biological; it
is economic and social and is transmitted, if at all, by tradition. The
nature of the economic equilibrium which results from competition has
been fully described in chapter viii. The plant community is this
equilibrium in its absolute form.
In animal and human societies the community has, so to speak, become
incorporated in the individual members of the group. The individuals are
adapted to a specific type of communal life, and these adaptations, in
animal as distinguished from human societies, are represented in the
division of labor between the sexes, in the instincts which secure the
protection and welfare of the young, in the so-called gregarious
instinct, and all these represent traits that are transmitted
biologically. But human societies, although providing for the expression
of original tendencies, are organized about tradition, mores, collective
representations, in short, _consensus_. And consensus represents, not
biological adaptations, but social accommodations.
Social organization, with the exception of the order based on
competition and adaptation, is essentially an accommodation of
differences through conflicts. This fact explains why diverse-mindedness
rather than like-mindedness is characteristic of human as distinguished
from animal society. Professor Cooley's statement of this point is
clear:
The unity of the social mind consists not in agreement but in
organization, in the fact of reciprocal influence or causation
among its parts, by virtue of which everything that takes place
in it is connected with everything else, and so is an outcome
of the whole.[222]
The distinction between accommodation and adaptation is illustrated in
the difference between domestication and taming. Through domestication
and breeding man has modified the original inheritable traits of plants
and animals. He has changed the character of the species. Through
taming, individuals of species naturally in conflict with man have
become accommodated to him. Eugenics may be regarded as a program of
biological adaptation of the human race in conscious realization of
social ideals. Education, on the other hand, represents a program of
accommodation or an organization, modification, and culture of original
traits.
Every society represents an organization of elements more or less
antagonistic to each other but united for the moment, at least, by an
arrangement which defines the reciprocal relations and respective
spheres of action of each. This accommodation, this _modus vivendi_, may
be relatively permanent as in a society constituted by castes, or quite
transitory as in societies made up of open classes. In either case, the
accommodation, while it is maintained, secures for the individual or for
the group a recognized status.
Accommodation is the natural issue of conflicts. In an accommodation the
antagonism of the hostile elements is, for the time being, regulated,
and conflict disappears as overt action, although it remains latent as a
potential force. With a change in the situation, the adjustment that had
hitherto successfully held in control the antagonistic forces fails.
There is confusion and unrest which may issue in open conflict.
Conflict, whether a war or a strike or a mere exchange of polite
innuendoes, invariably issues in a new accommodation or social order,
which in general involves a changed status in the relations among the
participants. It is only with assimilation that this antagonism, latent
in the organization of individuals or groups, is likely to be wholly
dissolved.
2. Classification of the Materials
The selections on accommodation in the materials are organized under the
following heads: (a) forms of accommodation; (b) subordination and
superordination; (c) conflict and accommodation; and (d)
competition, status, and social solidarity.
a) _Forms of accommodation._--There are many forms of accommodation.
One of the most subtle is that which in human geography is called
acclimatization, "accommodation to new climatic conditions." Recent
studies like those of Huntington in his "Climate and Civilization" have
emphasized the effects of climate upon human behavior. The selection
upon acclimatization by Brinton states the problems involved in the
adjustment of racial groups to different climatic environments. The
answers which he gives to the questions raised are not to be regarded as
conclusive but only as representative of one school of investigators and
as contested by other authorities in this field.
Naturalization, which in its original sense means the process by which a
person is made "natural," that is, familiar and at home in a strange
social milieu, is a term used in America to describe the legal process
by which a foreigner acquires the rights of citizenship. Naturalization,
as a social process, is naturally something more fundamental than the
legal ceremony of naturalization. It includes accommodation to the
folkways, the mores, the conventions, and the social ritual
(_Sittlichkeit_). It assumes also participation, to a certain extent at
least, in the memories, the tradition, and the culture of a new social
group. The proverb "In Rome do as the Romans do" is a basic principle of
naturalization. The cosmopolitan is the person who readily accommodates
himself to the codes of conduct of new social milieus.[223]
The difficulty of social accommodation to a new social milieu is not
always fully appreciated. The literature on homesickness and nostalgia
indicates the emotional dependence of the person upon familiar
associations and upon early intimate personal relations. Leaving home
for the first time, the intense lonesomeness of the rural lad in the
crowds of the city, the perplexity of the immigrant in the confusing
maze of strange, and to him inexplicable, customs are common enough
instances of the personal and social barriers to naturalization. But the
obstacles to most social adjustments for a person in a new social world
are even more baffling because of their subtle and intangible nature.
Just as in biology balance represents "a state of relatively good
adjustment due to structural adaptation of the organism as a whole" so
accommodation, when applied to groups rather than individuals, signifies
their satisfactory co-ordination from the standpoint of the inclusive
social organization.
Historically, the organization of the more inclusive society--i.e.,
states, confederations, empires, social and political units composed of
groups accommodated but not fully assimilated--presents four typical
constellations of the component group. Primitive society was an
organization of kinship groups. Ancient society was composed of masters
and slaves, with some special form of accommodation for the freeman and
the stranger, who was not a citizen, to be sure, but was not a slave
either.
Medieval society rested upon a system of class, approaching castes in
the distances it enforced. In all these different situations competition
took place only between individuals of the same status.
In contrast with this, modern society is made up of economic and social
classes with freedom of economic competition and freedom in passage,
therefore, from one class to the other.
b) _Subordination and superordination._--Accommodation, in the area of
personal relations, tends to take the form of subordination and
superordination. Even where accommodation has been imposed, as in the
case of slavery, by force, the personal relations of master and slave
are invariably supported by appropriate attitudes and sentiments. The
selection "Excerpts from the Journal of a West India Slave Owner" is a
convincing exhibit of the way in which attitudes of superordination and
subordination may find expression in the sentiments of a conscientious
and self-complacent paternalism on the part of the master and of an
ingratiating and reverential loyalty on the part of the slave. In a like
manner the selection from the "Memories of an Old Servant" indicates the
natural way in which sentiments of subordination which have grown up in
conformity with an accepted situation eventually become the basis of a
life-philosophy of the person.
Slavery and caste are manifestly forms of accommodation. The facts of
subordination are quite as real, though not as obvious, in other phases
of social life. The peculiar intimacy which exists, for example, between
lovers, between husband and wife, or between physician and patient,
involves relations of subordination and superordination, though not
recognized as such. The personal domination which a coach exercises over
the members of a ball team, a minister over his congregation, the
political leader over his party followers are instances of the same
phenomena.
Simmel in his interesting discussion of the subject points out the fact
that the relations of subordination and superordination are reciprocal.
In order to impose his will upon his slaves it was necessary for the
master to retain their respect. No one had a keener appreciation of the
aristocracy nor a greater scorn for the "poor white" than the Negro
slaves in the South before the war.
The leader of the gang, although he seems to have decisions absolutely
in his hand, has a sense of the attitudes of his followers. So the
successful political leader, who sometimes appears to be taking risks in
his advocacy of new issues, keeps "his ear close to the grass roots of
public opinion."
In the selection upon "The Psychology of Subordination and
Superordination" Münsterberg interprets suggestion, imitation, and
sympathy in terms of domination and submission. Personal influence,
prestige, and authority, in whatever form they find expression, are
based, to a greater or less extent, on the subtle influences of
suggestion.
The natural affections are social bonds which not infrequently assume
the form of bondage. Many a mother has been reduced to a condition of
abject subjection through her affection for a son or a daughter. The
same thing is notoriously true of the relations between the sexes. It is
in social complexes of this sort, rather than in the formal procedures
of governments, that we must look for the fundamental mechanism of
social control.
The conflicts and accommodations of persons with persons and of groups
with groups have their prototypes in the conflicts and accommodations of
the wishes of the person. The conflicts and accommodations in the mental
life of the person have received the name in psychoanalysis of
_sublimation_. The sublimation of a wish means its expression in a form
which represents an accommodation with another conflicting wish which
had repressed the original response of the first wish. The progressive
organization of personality depends upon the successful functioning of
this process of sublimation. The wishes of the person at birth are
inchoate; with mental development these wishes come into conflict with
each other and with the enveloping social milieu. Adolescence is
peculiarly the period of "storm and stress." Youth lives in a maze of
mental conflicts, of insurgent and aspiring wishes. Conversion is the
sudden mutation of life-attitudes through a reorganization or
transformation of the wishes.
c) _Conflict and accommodation._--The intrinsic relation between
conflict and accommodation is stated in the materials by Simmel in his
analysis of war and peace and the problems of compromise. "The
situations existing in time of peace are precisely the conditions out of
which war emerges." War, on the other hand, brings about the adjustments
in the relations of competing and conflict groups which make peace
possible. The problem, therefore, must find a solution in some method by
which the conflicts which are latent in, or develop out of, the
conditions of peace may be adjusted without a resort to war. In so far
as war is an effect of the mere inhibitions which the conditions of
peace impose, substitutes for war must provide, as William James has
suggested, for the expression of the expanding energies of individuals
and nations in ways that will contribute to the welfare of the community
and eventually of mankind as a whole. The intention is to make life more
interesting and at the same time more secure.
The difficulty is that the devices which render life more secure
frequently make it less interesting and harder to bear. Competition, the
struggle for existence and for, what is often more important than mere
existence, namely, status, may become so bitter that peace is
unendurable.
More than that, under the condition of peace, peoples whose life-habits
and traditions have been formed upon a basis of war frequently multiply
under conditions of peace to such an extent as to make an ultimate war
inevitable. The natives of South Africa, since the tribal wars have
ceased, have so increased in numbers as to be an increasing menace to
the white population. Any amelioration of the condition of mankind that
tends to disturb the racial equilibrium is likely to disturb the peace
of nations. When representatives of the Rockefeller Medical Foundation
proposed to introduce a rational system of medicine in China, certain of
the wise men of that country, it is reported, shook their heads
dubiously over the consequences that were likely to follow any large
decrease in the death-rate, seeing that China was already overpopulated.
In the same way education, which is now in a way to become a heritage of
all mankind, rather than the privilege of so-called superior peoples,
undoubtedly has had the effect of greatly increasing the mobility and
restlessness of the world's population. In so far as this is true, it
has made the problem of maintaining peace more difficult and dangerous.
On the other hand, education and the extension of intelligence
undoubtedly increase the possibility of compromise and conciliation
which, as Simmel points out, represent ways in which peace may be
restored and maintained other than by complete victory and subjugation
of the conquered people. It is considerations of this kind that have led
men like von Moltke to say that "universal peace is a dream and not even
a happy one," and has led other men like Carnegie to build peace palaces
in which the nations of the world might settle their differences by
compromise and according to law.
d) _Competition, status, and social solidarity._--Under the title
"Competition, Status, and Social Solidarity" selections are introduced
in the materials which emphasize the relation of competition to
accommodation. Up to this point in the materials only the relations of
conflict to accommodation have been considered. Status has been
described as an effect of conflict. But it is clear that economic
competition frequently becomes conscious and so passes over into some of
the milder forms of conflict. Aside from this it is evident that
competition in so far as it determines the vocation of the individual,
determines indirectly also his status, since it determines the class of
which he is destined to be a member. In the same way competition is
indirectly responsible for the organization of society in so far as it
determines the character of the accommodations and understandings which
are likely to exist between conflict groups. Social types as well as
status are indirectly determined by competition, since most of them are
vocational. The social types of the modern city, as indicated by the
selection on "Personal Competition and the Evolution of Individual
Types," are an outcome of the division of labor. Durkheim points out
that the division of labor in multiplying the vocations has increased
and not diminished the unity of society. The interdependence of
differentiated individuals and groups has made possible a social
solidarity that otherwise would not exist.
II. MATERIALS
A. FORMS OF ACCOMMODATION
1. Acclimatization[224]
The most important ethnic question in connection with climate is that of
the possibility of a race adapting itself to climatic conditions widely
different from those to which it has been accustomed. This is the
question of acclimatization.
Its bearings on ethnic psychology can be made at once evident by posing
a few practical inquiries: Can the English people flourish in India?
Will the French colonize successfully the Sudan? Have the Europeans lost
or gained in power by their migration to the United States? Can the
white or any other race ultimately become the sole residents of the
globe?
It will be seen that on the answers to such questions depends the
destiny of races and the consequences to the species of the facilities
of transportation offered by modern inventions. The subject has
therefore received the careful study of medical geographers and
statisticians.
I can give but a brief statement of their conclusions. They are to the
effect, first, that when the migration takes place along approximately
the same isothermal lines, the changes in the system are slight; but as
the mean annual temperature rises, the body becomes increasingly unable
to resist its deleterious action until a difference of 18° F. is
reached, at which continued existence of the more northern races
becomes impossible. They suffer from a chemical change in the condition
of the blood cells, leading to anemia in the individual and to
extinction of the lineage in the third generation.
This is the general law of the relation to race and climate. Like most
laws it has its exceptions, depending on special conditions. A stock
which has long been accustomed to change of climate adapts itself to any
with greater facility. This explains the singular readiness of the Jews
to settle and flourish in all zones. For a similar reason a people who
at home are accustomed to a climate of wide and sudden changes, like
that of the eastern United States, supports others with less loss of
power than the average.
A locality may be extremely hot but unusually free from other malefic
influences, being dry with regular and moderate winds, and well drained,
such as certain areas between the Red Sea and the Nile, which are also
quite salubrious.
Finally, certain individuals and certain families, owing to some
fortunate power of resistance which we cannot explain, acclimate
successfully where their companions perish. Most of the instances of
alleged successful acclimatization of Europeans in the tropics are due
to such exceptions, the far greater number of the victims being left out
of the count.
If these alleged successful cases, or that of the Jews or Arabs, be
closely examined, it will almost surely be discovered that another
physiological element has been active in bringing about acclimatization,
and that is the mingling of blood with the native race. In the American
tropics the Spaniards have survived for four centuries; but how many of
the _Ladinos_ can truthfully claim an unmixed descent? In Guatemala, for
example, says a close observer, _not any_. The Jews of the Malabar coast
have actually become black, and so has also in Africa many an Arab
claiming direct descent from the Prophet himself.
But along with this process of adaptation by amalgamation comes
unquestionably a lowering of the mental vitality of the higher race.
That is the price it has to pay for the privilege of survival under the
new conditions. But, in conformity to the principles already laid down
as accepted by all anthropologists, such a lowering must correspond to a
degeneration in the highest grades of structure, the brain cells.
We are forced, therefore, to reach the decision that the human species
attains its highest development only under moderate conditions of heat,
such as prevail in the temperate zones (an annual mean of 8°-12° C.);
and the more startling conclusion that the races now native to the polar
and tropical areas are distinctly _pathological_, are types of
degeneracy, having forfeited their highest physiological elements in
order to purchase immunity from the unfavorable climatic conditions to
which they are subject. We must agree with a French writer, that "man is
not cosmopolitan," and if he insists on becoming a "citizen of the
world" he is taxed heavily in his best estate for his presumption.
The inferences in racial psychology which follow this opinion are too
evident to require detailed mention. Natural selection has fitted the
Eskimo and the Sudanese for their respective abodes, but it has been by
the process of regressive evolution; progressive evolution in man has
confined itself to less extreme climatic areas.
The facts of acclimatization stand in close connection with another
doctrine in anthropology which is interesting for my theme, that of
"ethno-geographic provinces." Alexander von Humboldt seems to have been
the first to give expression to this system of human grouping, and it
has been diligently cultivated by his disciple, Professor Bastian. It
rests upon the application to the human species of two general
principles recognized as true in zoölogy and botany. The one is that
every organism is directly dependent on its environment (the _milieu_),
action and reaction going on constantly between them; the other is, that
no two faunal or floral regions are of equal rank in their capacity for
the development of a given type of organism.
The features which distinguish one ethno-geographic province from
another are chiefly, according to Bastian, meteorological, and they
permit, he claims, a much closer division of human groups than the
general continental areas which give us an African, a European, and an
American subspecies.
It is possible that more extended researches may enable ethnographers to
map out, in this sense, the distribution of our species; but the secular
alterations in meteorologic conditions, combined with the migratory
habits of most early communities, must greatly interfere with a rigid
application of these principles in ethnography.
The historic theory of "centres of civilisation" is allied to that of
ethno-geographic provinces. The stock examples of such are familiar. The
Babylonian plain, the valley of the Nile, in America the plateaus of
Mexico and of Tiahuanuco are constantly quoted as such. The geographic
advantages these situations offered--a fertile soil, protection from
enemies, domesticable plants, and a moderate climate--are offered as
reasons why an advanced culture rapidly developed in them, and from them
extended over adjacent regions.
Without denying the advantages of such surroundings, the most recent
researches in both hemispheres tend to reduce materially their
influence. The cultures in question did not begin at one point and
radiate from it, but arose simultaneously over wide areas, in different
linguistic stocks, with slight connections; and only later, and
secondarily, was it successfully concentrated by some one tribe--by the
agency, it is now believed, of cognatic rather than geographic aids.
Assyriologists no longer believe that Sumerian culture originated in the
delta of the Euphrates, and Egyptologists look for the sources of the
civilization of the Nile Valley among the Libyans; while in the New
World not one but seven stocks partook of the Aztec learning, and half a
dozen contributed to that of the Incas. The prehistoric culture of
Europe was not one of Carthaginians or Phoenicians, but was
self-developed.
2. Slavery Defined[225]
In most branches of knowledge the phenomena the man of science has to
deal with have their technical names, and, when using a scientific
term, he need not have regard to the meaning this term conveys in
ordinary language; he knows he will not be misunderstood by his
fellow-scientists. For instance, the Germans call a whale _Wallfisch_,
and the English speak of shellfish; but a zoölogist, using the word
fish, need not fear that any competent person will think he means whales
or shellfish.
In ethnology the state of things is quite different. There are a few
scientific names bearing a definite meaning, such as the terms "animism"
and "survival," happily introduced by Professor Tylor. But most
phenomena belonging to our science have not yet been investigated, so
it is no wonder that different writers (sometimes even the same writer
on different pages) give different names to the same phenomenon,
whereas, on the other hand, sometimes the same term (e.g., matriarchate)
is applied to widely different phenomena. As for the subject we are
about to treat of, we shall presently see that several writers have
given a definition of slavery; but no one has taken the trouble to
inquire whether his definition can be of any practical use in social
science. Therefore, we shall try to give a good definition and justify
it.
But we may not content ourselves with this; we must also pay attention
to the meaning of the term "slavery" as commonly employed. There are two
reasons for this. First, we must always rely upon the statements of
ethnographers. If an ethnographer states that some savage tribe carries
on slavery, without defining in what this "slavery" consists, we have to
ask: What may our informant have meant? And as he is likely to have used
the word in the sense generally attached to it, we have to inquire: What
is the ordinary meaning of the term "slavery"?
The second reason is this. Several theoretical writers speak of slavery
without defining what they mean by it; and we cannot avail ourselves of
their remarks without knowing what meaning they attach to this term. And
as they too may be supposed to have used it in the sense in which it is
generally used, we have again to inquire: What is the meaning of the
term "slavery" in ordinary language?
The general use of the word, as is so often the case, is rather
inaccurate. Ingram says:
Careless or rhetorical writers use the words "slave" and
"slavery" in a very lax way. Thus, when protesting against the
so-called "Subjection of Women," they absurdly apply those
terms to the condition of the wife in the modern society of the
west--designations which are inappropriate even in the case of
the inmate of Indian zenanas; and they speak of the modern
worker as a "wage-slave," even though he is backed by a
powerful trade-union. Passion has a language of its own, and
poets and orators must doubtless be permitted to denote by the
word "slavery" the position of subjects of a state who labor
under civil disabilities or are excluded from the exercise of
political power; but in sociological study things ought to have
their right names, and those names should, as far as possible,
be uniformly employed.
But this use of the word we may safely regard as a metaphor; nobody will
assert that these laborers and women are really slaves. Whoever uses the
term slavery in its ordinary sense attaches a fairly distinct idea to
it. What is this idea? We can express it most generally thus: a slave is
one who is not free. There are never slaves without there being freemen
too; and nobody can be at the same time a slave and a freeman. We must,
however, be careful to remember that, man being a "social animal," no
man is literally free; all members of a community are restricted in
their behavior toward each other by social rules and customs. But
freemen at any rate are relatively free; so a slave must be one who does
not share in the common amount of liberty, compatible with the social
connection.
The condition of the slave as opposed to that of the freeman presents
itself to us under the three following aspects:
First, every slave has his master to whom he is subjected. And this
subjection is of a peculiar kind. Unlike the authority one freeman
sometimes has over another, the master's power over his slave is
unlimited, at least in principle; any restriction put upon the master's
free exercise of his power is a mitigation of slavery, not belonging to
its nature, just as in Roman law the proprietor may do with his property
whatever he is not by special laws forbidden to do. The relation between
master and slave is therefore properly expressed by the slave being
called the master's "possession" or "property"--expressions we
frequently meet with.
Secondly, slaves are in a lower condition as compared with freemen. The
slave has no political rights; he does not choose his government, he
does not attend the public councils. Socially he is despised.
In the third place, we always connect with slavery the idea of
compulsory labor. The slave is compelled to work; the free laborer may
leave off working if he likes, be it at the cost of starving. All
compulsory labor, however, is not slave labor; the latter requires that
peculiar kind of compulsion that is expressed by the word "possession"
or "property" as has been said before.
Recapitulating, we may define a slave in the ordinary sense of the word
as a man who is the property of another, politically and socially at a
lower level than the mass of the people, and performing compulsory
labor.
The great function of slavery can be no other than a _division of
labor_. Division of labor is taken here in the widest sense, as
including not only a qualitative division, by which one man does one
kind of work and another a different kind, but also a quantitative one,
by which one man's wants are provided for, not by his own work only, but
by another's. A society without any division of labor would be one in
which each man worked for his own wants, and nobody for another's; in
any case but this there is a division of labor in this wider sense of
the word. Now this division can be brought about by two means. "There
are two ways" says Puchta "in which we can avail ourselves of the
strength of other men which we are in need of. One is the way of free
commerce, that does not interfere with the liberty of the person who
serves us, the making of contracts by which we exchange the strength and
skill of another, or their products, for other performances on our part:
hire of services, purchase of manufactures, etc. The other way is the
subjugation of such persons, which enables us to dispose of their
strength in our behalf but at the same time injures the personality of
the subjected. This subjection can be imagined as being restricted to
certain purposes, for instance to the cultivation of the land, as with
soil-tilling serfs, the result of which is that this subjection, for the
very reason that it has a definite and limited aim, does not quite annul
the liberty of the subjected. But the subjection can also be an
unlimited one, as is the case when the subjected person, in the whole of
his outward life, is treated as but a means to the purposes of the man
of power, and so his personality is entirely absorbed. This is the
institution of slavery."
3. Excerpts from the Journal of a West India Slave Owner[226]
Soon after nine o'clock we reached Savannah la Mar, where I found my
trustee, and a whole cavalcade, waiting to conduct me to my own estate;
for he had brought with him a curricle and pair for myself, a gig for my
servant, two black boys upon mules, and a cart with eight oxen to convey
my baggage. The road was excellent, and we had not above five miles to
travel; and as soon as the carriage entered my gates, the uproar and
confusion which ensued sets all description at defiance. The works were
instantly all abandoned; everything that had life came flocking to the
house from all quarters; and not only the men, and the women, and the
children, but, "by a bland assimilation," the hogs, and the dogs, and
the geese, and the fowls, and the turkeys, all came hurrying along by
instinct, to see what could possibly be the matter, and seemed to be
afraid of arriving too late. Whether the pleasure of the negroes was
sincere may be doubted; but certainly it was the loudest that I ever
witnessed: they all talked together, sang, danced, shouted, and, in the
violence of their gesticulations, tumbled over each other, and rolled
about upon the ground. Twenty voices at once enquired after uncles, and
aunts, and grandfathers, and great-grandmothers of mine, who had been
buried long before I was in existence, and whom, I verily believe, most
of them only knew by tradition. One woman held up her little naked black
child to me, grinning from ear to ear, "Look, Massa, look here! him nice
lilly neger for Massa!" Another complained, "So long since none come see
we, Massa; good Massa, come at last." As for the old people, they were
all in one and the same story: now they had lived once to see Massa,
they were ready for dying tomorrow, "them no care."
The shouts, the gaiety, the wild laughter, their strange and sudden
bursts of singing and dancing, and several old women, wrapped up in
large cloaks, their heads bound round with different-colored
handkerchiefs, leaning on a staff, and standing motionless in the middle
of the hubbub, with their eyes fixed upon the portico which I occupied,
formed an exact counterpart of the festivity of the witches in Macbeth.
Nothing could be more odd or more novel than the whole scene; and yet
there was something in it by which I could not help being affected;
perhaps it was the consciousness that all these human beings were my
_slaves_;--to be sure, I never saw people look more happy in my life;
and I believe their condition to be much more comfortable than that of
the laborers of Great Britain; and, after all, slavery, in _their_ case,
is but another name for servitude, now that no more negroes can be
forcibly carried away from Africa and subjected to the horrors of the
voyage and of the seasoning after their arrival; but still I had already
experienced, in the morning, that Juliet was wrong in saying "What's in
a name?" For soon after my reaching the lodging-house at Savannah la
Mar, a remarkably clean-looking negro lad presented himself with some
water and a towel--I concluded him to belong to the inn--and, on my
returning the towel, as he found that I took no notice of him, he at
length ventured to introduce himself by saying, "Massa not know me; _me
your slave!_"--and really the sound made me feel a pang at the heart.
The lad appeared all gaiety and good humor, and his whole countenance
expressed anxiety to recommend himself to my notice, but the word
"slave" seemed to imply that, although he did feel pleasure then in
serving me, if he had detested me he must have served me still. I really
felt quite humiliated at the moment, and was tempted to tell him, "Do
not say that again; say that you are my negro, but do not call yourself
my slave."
As I was returning this morning from Montego Bay, about a mile from my
own estate, a figure presented itself before me, I really think the most
picturesque that I ever beheld: it was a mulatto girl, born upon
Cornwall, but whom the overseer of a neighboring estate had obtained my
permission to exchange for another slave, as well as two little
children, whom she had borne to him; but, as yet, he had been unable to
procure a substitute, owing to the difficulty of purchasing single
negroes, and Mary Wiggins is still my slave. However, as she is
considered as being manumitted, she had not dared to present herself at
Cornwall on my arrival, lest she should have been considered as an
intruder; but she now threw herself in my way to tell me how glad she
was to see me, for that she had always thought till now (which is the
general complaint) that "_she had no massa_;" and also to obtain a
regular invitation to my negro festival tomorrow. By this universal
complaint, it appears that, while Mr. Wilberforce is lamenting their
hard fate in being subject to a master, _their_ greatest fear is the not
having a master whom they know; and that to be told by the negroes of
another estate that "they belong to no massa," is one of the most
contemptuous reproaches that can be cast upon them. Poor creatures, when
they happened to hear on Wednesday evening that my carriage was ordered
for Montego Bay the next morning, they fancied that I was going away for
good and all, and came up to the house in such a hubbub that my agent
was obliged to speak to them, and pacify them with the assurance that I
should come back on Friday without fail.
But to return to Mary Wiggins: she was much too pretty not to obtain her
invitation to Cornwall; on the contrary, I _insisted_ upon her coming,
and bade her tell her _husband_ that I admired his taste very much for
having chosen her. I really think that her form and features were the
most _statue-like_ that I ever met with; her complexion had no yellow in
it and yet was not brown enough to be dark--it was more of an ash-dove
color than anything else; her teeth were admirable, both for color and
shape; her eyes equally mild and bright; and her face merely broad
enough to give it all possible softness and grandness of contour: her
air and countenance would have suited Yarico; but she reminded me most
of Grassini in "La Vergine del Sole," only that Mary Wiggins was a
thousand times more beautiful, and that, instead of a white robe, she
wore a mixed dress of brown, white, and dead yellow, which harmonized
excellently with her complexion; while one of her beautiful arms was
thrown across her brow to shade her eyes, and a profusion of rings on
her fingers glittered in the sunbeams. Mary Wiggins and an old cotton
tree are the most picturesque objects that I have seen for these twenty
years.
I really believe that the negresses can produce children at pleasure,
and where they are barren, it is just as hens will frequently not lay
eggs on shipboard, because they do not like their situation. Cubina's
wife is in a family way, and I told him that if the child should live, I
would christen it for him, if he wished it. "Tank you, kind massa, me
like it very much: much oblige if massa do that for _me_, too." So I
promised to baptize the father and the baby on the same day, and said
that I would be godfather to any children that might be born on the
estate during my residence in Jamaica. This was soon spread about, and,
although I have not yet been here a week, two women are in the straw
already, Jug Betty and Minerva: the first is wife to my head driver, The
Duke of Sully, but my sense of propriety was much gratified at finding
that Minerva's husband was called Captain. I think nobody will be able
to accuse me of neglecting the religious education of my negroes, for I
have not only promised to baptize all the infants, but, meeting a little
black boy this morning, who said that his name was Moses, I gave him a
piece of silver, and told him that it was for the sake of Aaron; which,
I flatter myself, was planting in his young mind the rudiments of
Christianity.
On my former visit to Jamaica, I found on my estate a poor woman nearly
one hundred years old, and stone blind. She was too infirm to walk, but
two young negroes brought her on their backs to the steps of my house,
in order, as she said, that she might at least touch massa, although she
could not see him. When she had kissed my hand, "that was enough," she
said: "now me hab once kiss a massa's hand, me willing to die tomorrow,
me no care." She had a woman appropriated to her service and was shown
the greatest care and attention; however, she did not live many months
after my departure. There was also a mulatto, about thirty years of age,
named Bob, who had been almost deprived of the use of his limbs by the
horrible cocoa-bay, and had never done the least work since he was
fifteen. He was so gentle and humble and so fearful, from the
consciousness of his total inability of soliciting my notice, that I
could not help pitying the poor fellow; and whenever he came in my way I
always sought to encourage him by little presents and other trifling
marks of favor. His thus unexpectedly meeting with distinguishing
kindness, where he expected to be treated as a worthless incumbrance,
made a strong impression on his mind.
4. The Origin of Caste in India[227]
If it were possible to compress into a single paragraph a theory so
complex as that which would explain the origin and nature of Indian
caste, I should attempt to sum it up in some such words as the
following: A caste is a marriage union, the constituents of which were
drawn from various different tribes (or from various other castes
similarly formed) in virtue of some industry, craft, or function, either
secular or religious, which they possessed in common. The internal
discipline, by which the conditions of membership in regard to connubial
and convivial rights are defined and enforced, has been borrowed from
the tribal period which preceded the period of castes by many centuries,
and which was brought to a close by the amalgamation of tribes into a
nation under a common scepter. The differentia of _caste_ as a marriage
union consists in some community of function; while the differentia of
_tribe_ as a marriage union consisted in a common ancestry, or a common
worship, or a common totem, or in fact in any kind of common property
except that of a common function.
Long before castes were formed on Indian soil, most of the industrial
classes, to which they now correspond, had existed for centuries, and as
a rule most of the industries which they practiced were hereditary on
the male side of the parentage. These hereditary classes were and are
simply the concrete embodiments of those successive stages of culture
which have marked the industrial development of mankind in every part of
the world. Everywhere (except at least in those countries where he is
still a savage), man has advanced from the stage of hunting and fishing
to that of nomadism and cattle-grazing, and from nomadism to agriculture
proper. Everywhere has the age of metallurgy and of the arts and
industries which are coeval with it been preceded by a ruder age, when
only those arts were known or practiced which sufficed for the hunting,
fishing, and nomad states. Everywhere has the class of ritualistic
priests and lettered theosophists been preceded by a class of
less-cultivated worshipers, who paid simple offerings of flesh and wine
to the personified powers of the visible universe without the aid of a
hereditary professional priesthood. Everywhere has the class of nobles
and territorial chieftains been preceded by a humbler class of small
peasant proprietors, who placed themselves under their protection and
paid tribute or rent in return. Everywhere has this class of nobles and
chieftains sought to ally itself with that of the priests or sacerdotal
order; and everywhere has the priestly order sought to bring under its
control those chiefs and rulers under whose protection it lives.
All these classes had been in existence for centuries before any such
thing as caste was known on Indian soil; and the only thing that was
needed to convert them into castes, such as they now are, was that the
Brahman, who possessed the highest of all functions--the
priestly--should set the example. This he did by establishing for the
first time the rule that no child, either male or female, could inherit
the name and status of Brahman, unless he or she was of Brahman
parentage on _both_ sides. By the establishment of this rule the
principle of marriage unionship was superadded to that of functional
unionship; and it was only by the combination of these two principles
that a caste in the strict sense of the term could or can be formed. The
Brahman, therefore, as the Hindu books inform us, was "the first-born
of castes." When the example had thus been set by an arrogant and
overbearing priesthood, whose pretensions it was impossible to put down,
the other hereditary classes followed in regular order downward, partly
in imitation and partly in self-defence. Immediately behind the
Brahman came the Kshatriya, the military chieftain or landlord. He
therefore was the "second-born of castes." Then followed the bankers or
upper trading classes (the Agarwal, Khattri, etc.); the scientific
musician and singer (Kathak); the writing or literary class
(Kayasth); the bard or genealogist (Bhat); and the class of
inferior nobles (Taga and Bhuinhar) who paid no rent to the landed
aristocracy. These, then, were the third-born of castes. Next in order
came those artisan classes, who were coeval with the age and art of
metallurgy; the metallurgic classes themselves; the middle trading
classes; the middle agricultural classes, who placed themselves under
the protection of the Kshatriya and paid him rent in return (Kurmi,
Kachhi, Mali, Tamboli); and the middle serving classes, such as
Napit and Baidya, who attended to the bodily wants of their equals and
superiors. These, then, were the fourth-born of castes; and their rank
in the social scale has been determined by the fact that their manners
and notions are farther removed than those of the preceding castes from
the Brahmanical ideal. Next came the inferior artisan classes, those
who preceded the age and art of metallurgy (Teli, Kumhar, Kalwar,
etc.); the partly nomad and partly agricultural classes (Jat,
Gujar, Ahir, etc.); the inferior serving classes, such as Kahar;
and the inferior trading classes, such as Bhunja. These, then, were the
fifth-born of castes, and their mode of life is still farther removed
from the Brahmanical ideal than that of the preceding. The last-born,
and therefore the lowest, of all the classes are those semisavage
communities, partly tribes and partly castes, whose function consists in
hunting or fishing, or in acting as butcher for the general community,
or in rearing swine and fowls, or in discharging the meanest domestic
services, such as sweeping and washing, or in practicing the lowest of
human arts, such as basket-making, hide-tanning, etc. Thus throughout
the whole series of Indian castes a double test of social precedence has
been in active force, the industrial and the Brahmanical; and these
two have kept pace together almost as evenly as a pair of horses
harnessed to a single carriage. In proportion as the function practiced
by any given caste stands high or low in the scale of industrial
development, in the same proportion does the caste itself, impelled by
the general tone of society by which it is surrounded, approximate more
nearly or more remotely to the Brahmanical idea of life. It is these
two criteria combined which have determined the relative ranks of the
various castes in the Hindu social scale.
5. Caste and the Sentiments of Caste Reflected in Popular Speech[228]
No one indeed can fail to be struck by the intensely popular character
of Indian proverbial philosophy and by its freedom from the note of
pedantry which is so conspicuous in Indian literature. These quaint
sayings have dropped fresh from the lips of the Indian rustic; they
convey a vivid impression of the anxieties, the troubles, the
annoyances, and the humors of his daily life; and any sympathetic
observer who has felt the fascination of an oriental village would have
little difficulty in constructing from these materials a fairly accurate
picture of rural society in India. The _mise en scène_ is not altogether
a cheerful one. It shows us the average peasant dependent upon the
vicissitudes of the season and the vagaries of the monsoon, and watching
from day to day to see what the year may bring forth. Should rain fall
at the critical moment his wife will get golden earrings, but one short
fortnight of drought may spell calamity when "God takes all at once."
Then the forestalling Baniya flourishes by selling rotten grain, and the
Jat cultivator is ruined. First die the improvident Musalman
weavers, then the oil-pressers for whose wares there is no demand; the
carts lie idle, for the bullocks are dead, and the bride goes to her
husband without the accustomed rites. But be the season good or bad, the
pious Hindu's life is ever overshadowed by the exactions of the
Brahman--"a thing with a string round its neck" (a profane hit at the
sacred thread), a priest by appearance, a butcher at heart, the chief of
a trio of tormentors gibbeted in the rhyming proverb:
Blood-suckers three on earth there be,
The bug, the Brahman, and the flea.
Before the Brahman starves the king's larder will be empty; cakes
must be given to him while the children of the house may lick the
grindstone for a meal; his stomach is a bottomless pit; he eats so
immoderately that he dies from wind. He will beg with a lakh of rupees
in his pocket, and a silver begging-bowl in his hand. In his greed for
funeral fees he spies out corpses like a vulture, and rejoices in the
misfortunes of his clients. A village with a Brahman in it is like a
tank full of crabs; to have him as a neighbor is worse than leprosy; if
a snake has to be killed the Brahman should be set to do it, for no
one will miss him. If circumstances compel you to perjure yourself, why
swear on the head of your son, when there is a Brahman handy? Should
he die (as is the popular belief) the world will be none the poorer.
Like the devil in English proverbial philosophy, the Brahman can cite
scripture for his purpose; he demands worship himself but does not
scruple to kick his low-caste brethren; he washes his sacred thread but
does not cleanse his inner man; and so great is his avarice that a man
of another caste is supposed to pray "O God, let me not be reborn as a
Brahman priest, who is always begging and is never satisfied." He
defrauds even the gods; Vishnu gets the barren prayers while the
Brahman devours the offerings. So Pan complains in one of Lucian's
dialogues that he is done out of the good things which men offer at his
shrine.
The next most prominent figure in our gallery of popular portraits is
that of the Baniya, money-lender, grain-dealer, and monopolist, who
dominates the material world as the Brahman does the spiritual. His
heart, we are told, is no bigger than a coriander seed; he has the jaws
of an alligator and a stomach of wax; he is less to be trusted than a
tiger, a scorpion, or a snake; he goes in like a needle and comes out
like a sword; as a neighbor he is as bad as a boil in the armpit. If a
Baniya is on the other side of a river you should leave your bundle on
this side, for fear he should steal it. When four Baniyas meet they rob
the whole world. If a Baniya is drowning you should not give him a hand:
he is sure to have some base motive for drifting down stream. He uses
light weights and swears that the scales tip themselves; he keeps his
accounts in a character that no one but God can read; if you borrow from
him, your debt mounts up like a refuse heap or gallops like a horse; if
he talks to a customer he "draws a line" and debits the conversation;
when his own credit is shaky he writes up his transactions on the wall
so that they can easily be rubbed out. He is so stingy that the dogs
starve at his feast, and he scolds his wife if she spends a farthing on
betel-nut. A Jain Baniya drinks dirty water and shrinks from killing
ants and flies, but will not stick at murder in pursuit of gain. As a
druggist the Baniya is in league with the doctor; he buys weeds at a
nominal price and sells them very dear. Finally, he is always a shocking
coward: eighty-four Khatris will run away from four thieves.
Nor does the clerical caste fare better at the hands of the popular
epigrammatist. Where three Kayasths are gathered together a
thunderbolt is sure to fall; when honest men fall out the Kayasth
gets his chance. When a Kayasth takes to money-lending he is a
merciless creditor. He is a man of figures; he lives by the point of his
pen; in his house even the cat learns two letters and a half. He is a
versatile creature, and where there are no tigers he will become a
shikari; but he is no more to be trusted than a crow or a snake
without a tail. One of the failings sometimes imputed to the educated
Indian is attacked in the saying, "Drinking comes to a Kayasth with
his mother's milk."
Considering the enormous strength of the agricultural population of
India, one would have expected to find more proverbs directed against
the great cultivating castes. Possibly the reason may be that they made
most of the proverbs, and people can hardly be expected to sharpen their
wit on their own shortcomings. In two provinces, however, the rural
Pasquin has let out very freely at the morals and manners of the Jat,
the typical peasant of the eastern Punjab and the western districts of
the United Provinces. You may as well, we are told, look for good in a
Jat as for weevils in a stone. He is your friend only so long as you
have a stick in your hand. If he cannot harm you he will leave a bad
smell as he goes by. To be civil to him is like giving treacle to a
donkey. If he runs amuck it takes God to hold him. A Jat's laugh
would break an ordinary man's ribs. When he learns manners, he blows his
nose with a mat, and there is a great run on the garlic. His baby has a
plowtail for a plaything. The Jat stood on his own corn heap and
called out to the King's elephant-drivers, "Hi there, what will you take
for those little donkeys?" He is credited with practicing fraternal
polyandry, like the Venetian nobility of the early eighteenth century,
as a measure of domestic economy, and a whole family are said to have
one wife between them.
The Doms, among whom we find scavengers, vermin-eaters, executioners,
basket-makers, musicians, and professional burglars, probably represent
the remnants of a Dravidian tribe crushed out of recognition by the
invading Aryans and condemned to menial and degrading occupations. Sir
G. Grierson has thrown out the picturesque suggestion that they are the
ancestors of the European gypsies and that Rom or Romany is nothing more
than a variant of Dom. In the ironical language of the proverbs the Dom
figures as "the lord of death" because he provides the wood for the
Hindu funeral pyre. He is ranked with Brahmans and goats as a
creature useless in time of need. A common and peculiarly offensive form
of abuse is to tell a man that he has eaten a Dom's leavings. A series
of proverbs represents him as making friends with members of various
castes and faring ill or well in the process. Thus the Kanjar steals his
dog, and the Gujar loots his house; on the other hand, the barber
shaves him for nothing, and the silly Jolahaa makes him a suit of
clothes. His traditions associate him with donkeys, and it is said that
if these animals could excrete sugar, Doms would no longer be beggars.
"A Dom in a palanquin and a Brahman on foot" is a type of society
turned upside down. Nevertheless, outcast as he is, the Dom occupies a
place of his own in the fabric of Indian society. At funerals he
provides the wood and gets the corpse clothes as his perquisite; he
makes the discordant music that accompanies a marriage procession; and
baskets, winnowing-fans, and wicker articles in general are the work of
his hands.
In the west of India, Mahars and Dheds hold much the same place as
the Dom. In the walled villages of the Maratha country the
Mahar is the scavenger, watchman, and gate-keeper. His presence
pollutes; he is not allowed to live in the village; and his miserable
shanty is huddled up against the wall outside. But he challenges the
stranger who comes to the gate, and for this and other services he is
allowed various perquisites, among them that of begging for broken
victuals from house to house. He offers old blankets to his god, and his
child's playthings are bones. The Dhed's status is equally low. If he
looks at a water jar he pollutes its contents; if you run up against him
by accident, you must go off and bathe. If you annoy a Dhed he sweeps up
the dust in your face. When he dies, the world is so much the cleaner.
If you go to the Dheds' quarter you find there nothing but a heap of
bones.
This relegation of the low castes to a sort of ghetto is carried to
great lengths in the south of India where the intolerance of the
Brahman is very conspicuous. In the typical Madras village the
Pariahs--"dwellers in the quarter" (_para_) as this broken tribe
is now called--live in an irregular cluster of conical hovels of palm
leaves known as the _parchery_, the squalor and untidiness of which
present the sharpest contrasts to the trim street of tiled masonry
houses where the Brahmans congregate. "Every village," says the
proverb, "has its Pariah hamlet"--a place of pollution the census of
which is even now taken with difficulty owing to the reluctance of the
high-caste enumerator to enter its unclean precincts. "A palm tree,"
says another, "casts no shade; a Pariah has no caste and rules." The
popular estimate of the morals of the Pariah comes out in the saying,
"He that breaks his word is a Pariah at heart"; while the note of irony
predominates in the pious question, "If a Pariah offers boiled rice will
not the god take it?" the implication being that the Brahman priests
who take the offerings to idols are too greedy to inquire by whom they
are presented.
B. SUBORDINATION AND SUPERORDINATION
1. The Psychology of Subordination and Superordination[229]
The typical suggestion is given by words. But the impulse to act under
the influence of another person arises no less when the action is
proposed in the more direct form of showing the action itself. The
submission then takes the form of imitation. This is the earliest type
of subordination. It plays a fundamental rôle in the infant's life, long
before the suggestion through words can begin its influence. The infant
imitates involuntarily as soon as connections between the movement
impulses and the movement impressions have been formed. At first
automatic reflexes produce all kinds of motions, and each movement
awakes kinesthetic and muscle sensations. Through association these
impressions become bound up with the motor impulses. As soon as the
movements of other persons arouse similar visual sensations the
kinesthetic sensations are associated and realize the corresponding
movement. Very soon the associative irradiation becomes more complex,
and whole groups of emotional reactions are imitated. The child cries
and laughs in imitation.
Most important is the imitation of the speech movement. The sound awakes
the impulse to produce the same vocal sound long before the meaning of
the word is understood. Imitation is thus the condition for the
acquiring of speech, and later the condition for the learning of all
other abilities. But while the imitation is at first simply automatic,
it becomes more and more volitional. The child intends to imitate what
the teacher shows as an example. This intentional imitation is certainly
one of the most important vehicles of social organization. The desire to
act like certain models becomes the most powerful social energy. But
even the highest differentiation of society does not eliminate the
constant working of the automatic, impulsive imitation.
The inner relation between imitation and suggestion shows itself in the
similarity of conditions under which they are most effective. Every
increase of suggestibility facilitates imitation. In any emotional
excitement of a group every member submits to the suggestion of the
others, but the suggestion is taken from the actual movements. A crowd
in a panic or a mob in a riot shows an increased suggestibility by which
each individual automatically repeats what his neighbors are doing. Even
an army in battle may become, either through enthusiasm or through fear,
a group in which all individuality is lost and everyone is forced by
imitative impulses to fight or escape. The psychophysical experiment
leaves no doubt that this imitative response releases the sources of
strongest energy in the mental mechanism. If the arm lifts the weight of
an ergograph until the will cannot overcome the fatigue, the mere seeing
of the movement carried out by others whips the motor centers to new
efficiency.
We saw that our feeling states are both causes and effects of our
actions. We cannot experience the impulse to action without a new
shading of our emotional setting. Imitative acting involves, therefore,
an inner imitation of feelings too. The child who smiles in response to
the smile of his mother shares her pleasant feeling. The adult who is
witness of an accident in which someone is hurt imitates instinctively
the cramping muscle contractions of the victim, and as a result he feels
an intense dislike without having the pain sensations themselves. From
such elementary experiences an imitative emotional life develops,
controlled by a general sympathetic tendency. We share the pleasures and
the displeasures of others through an inner imitation which remains
automatic. In its richer forms this sympathy becomes an _altruistic
sentiment_; it stirs the desire to remove the misery around us and
unfolds to a general mental setting through which every action is
directed toward the service to others. But from the faintest echoing of
feelings in the infant to the highest self-sacrifice from altruistic
impulse, we have the common element of submission. The individual is
feeling, and accordingly acting, not in the realization of his
individual impulses, but under the influence of other personalities.
This subordination to the feelings of others through sympathy and pity
and common joy takes a new psychological form in the affection of
tenderness and especially parental love. The relation of parents to
children involves certainly an element of superordination, but the
mentally strongest factor remains the subordination, the complete
submission to the feelings of those who are dependent upon the parents'
care. In its higher development the parental love will not yield to
every momentary like or dislike of the child, but will adjust the
educative influence to the lasting satisfactions and to the later
sources of unhappiness. But the submission of the parents to the feeling
tones in the child's life remains the fundamental principle of the
family instinct. While the parents' love and tenderness mean that the
stronger submits to the weaker, even up to the highest points of
self-sacrifice, the loving child submits to his parents from feelings
which are held together by a sense of dependence. This feeling of
dependence as a motive of subordination enters into numberless human
relations. Everywhere the weak lean on the strong, and choose their
actions under the influence of those in whom they have confidence. The
corresponding feelings show the manifold shades of modesty, admiration,
gratitude, and hopefulness. Yet it is only another aspect of the social
relation if the consciousness of dependence upon the more powerful is
felt with fear and revolt, or with the nearly related emotion of envy.
The desire to assert oneself is no less powerful, in the social
interplay, than the impulse to submission. Society needs the leaders as
well as the followers. Self-assertion presupposes contact with other
individuals. Man protects himself against the dangers of nature, and
man masters nature; but he asserts himself against men who interfere
with him or whom he wants to force to obedience. The most immediate
reaction in the compass of self-assertion is indeed the _rejection of
interference_. It is a form in which even the infant shows the opposite
of submission. He repels any effort to disturb him in the realization of
the instinctive impulses. From the simplest reaction of the infant
disturbed in his play or his meal, a straight line of development leads
to the fighting spirit of man, whose pugnaciousness and whose longing
for vengeance force his will on his enemies. Every form of rivalry,
jealousy, and intolerance finds in this feeling group its source of
automatic response. The most complex intellectual processes may be made
subservient to this self-asserting emotion.
But the effort to impose one's will on others certainly does not result
only from conflict. An entirely different emotional center is given by
the mere desire for _self-expression_. In every field of human activity
the individual may show his inventiveness, his ability to be different
from others, to be a model, to be imitated by his fellows. The normal
man has a healthy, instinctive desire to claim recognition from the
members of the social group. This interferes neither with the spirit of
co-ordination nor with the subordination of modesty. In so far as the
individual demands acknowledgement of his personal behavior and his
personal achievement, he raises himself by that act above others. He
wants his mental attitude to influence and control the social
surroundings. In its fuller development this inner setting becomes the
ambition for leadership in the affairs of practical life or in the
sphere of cultural work.
The superficial counterpart is the desire for _self-display_ with all
its variations of vanity and boastfulness. From the most bashful
submission to the most ostentatious self-assertion, from the
self-sacrifice of motherly love to the pugnaciousness of despotic
egotism, the social psychologist can trace the human impulses through
all the intensities of the human energies which interfere with equality
in the group. Each variation has its emotional background and its
impulsive discharge. Within normal limits they are all equally useful
for the biological existence of the group and through the usefulness for
the group ultimately serviceable to its members. Only through
superordination and subordination does the group receive the inner
firmness which transforms the mere combination of men into working
units. They give to human society that strong and yet flexible
organization which is the necessary condition for its successful
development.
2. Social Attitudes in Subordination: Memories of an Old Servant[230]
Work is a great blessing, and it has been wisely arranged by our divine
Master that all his creatures should have a work to do of some kind.
Some are weak and some are strong. Old and young, rich and poor, there
is that work expected from us, and how much happier we are when we are
at our work.
There are so many things to learn, so many different kinds of work that
must be done to make the world go on right. And some work is easier than
others; but all ought to be well done, and in a cheerful, contented
manner. Some prefer working with hands and feet; they say it is easier
than the head work; but surely both are heavy work, for it does depend
on your ability.
Boys and girls do not leave school so early as they did fifty or sixty
years ago. The boys went out quite happy and manly to do their herding
at some farm, and would be very useful for some years till they
preferred learning some trade, etc.; then a younger boy just filled his
place; and by doing this they did learn farming a good bit, and this
helped them on in after years if they wanted to go back to farming
again. We regret to see that the page-boy is not wanted so much as he
used to be; and what a help that used to be for a young boy. He learns a
great deal by being first of all a while in the stable yard or garage
before he goes into the gentleman's house, and he is neat and tidy at
all times for messages. We have seen many of them in our young days; and
even the waif has been picked up by a good master, and began in the
stables and worked his way up to be a respected valet in the same
household, and often and often told the story of his waif life in the
servants' hall.
The old servant has seen many changes and in many cases prefers the good
old ways; there may be some better arrangements made, we cannot doubt
that, but we are surprised at good old practices that our late beloved
employers had ignored by their own children after they have so far
grown up. Servants need the good example from their superiors, and when
they hear the world speak well of them they do look for the good ways in
the home life. We all like to hold up an employer's good name, surely we
do if we are interested at all in our work, and if we feel that we
cannot do our duty to them we ought to go elsewhere and not deceive
them. We are trusted with a very great deal, and it is well for us if we
are doing all we can as faithful servants, and in the end lay down our
tools with the feeling that we have tried to do our best.
We must remember that each one is born in his station in life, wisely
arranged by "One Who Knows and Who Is Our Supreme Ruler." No one can
alter this nor say to him, "What Doest Thou?" so we must each and all
keep our station and honor the rich man and the poor man who humbly
tries to live a Christian life, and when their faults are seen by us may
we at once turn to ourselves and look if we are not human, too, and may
be as vile as they.
We have noticed some visitors very rude to the servants and so different
to our own employers, and we set a mark on them, for we would not go to
serve them. We remember once when our lady's brother was showing a
visiting lady some old relics near the front door they came upon the
head housemaid who was cleaning the church pew chairs (they were carried
in while the church was being repaired), and she was near a very old
grand piano. The lady asked in such a jeer, "And is this the housemaid's
piano"? The gentleman looked very hard at the housemaid, for we were
sure that he was very annoyed at her, but we did not hear his answer;
but the housemaid had the good sense to keep quiet, but she could have
told her to keep her jeers, for we were not her class of servant,
neither was she our class of employer. We heard her character after, and
never cared to see her. Some servants take great liberties, and then all
are supposed to be alike; but we are glad that all ladies are not like
this, for the world would be poor indeed; they would soon ruin all the
girls--and no wonder her husband had left her. We heard of a gentleman
who fancied his laundry-maid, so he called his servants together and
told them that he was to marry her and bring her home as the lady of his
house, and he hoped they would all stay where they were; but if they
felt that they could not look upon her as their mistress and his wife,
they were free to go away. And not one of them left, for they stayed on
with them for years. This is a true story from one who knew them and
could show us their London house. Now we have lived with superior
servants, and we would much rather serve them even now in our old age
than serve any lady who can never respect a servant.
Nothing brings master and servant closer together than the sudden sore
bereavement, and very likely this book could not be written so sad were
it not for the many sad days that have been spent in service, and now so
very few of the employers are to be seen; and when they are with us we
feel that we are still respected by them, for there is the usual
welcome--for they would look back the same as we do on days that are
gone by. In our young days the curtsy was fashionable; you would see
every man's daughter bobbing whenever they met the lady or gentlemen or
when they met their teacher. The custom is gone now, and we wonder why;
but the days are changed, and some call it education that is so far
doing this; it cannot be education, for we do look for more respect from
the educated than from the class that we called the ignorant.
How well off the servants are in these years of war, for they have no
rent to worry about and no anxiety about their coal bill, nor how food,
etc., is to be got in and paid for, no taxes nor cares like so many poor
working men; they are also sure of their wages when quarter day comes
round. It is true she may have a widow mother who requires some help
with rent, coals, or food, but there are many who ought to value a good
situation, whether in the small comfortable house as general or in
larger good situations where a few servants are, for we have seen them
all and know what they have been like, and so, we say that all as a rule
ought to be very thankful that they are the domestic servant and so
study to show gratitude by good deeds to all around, as there is work
just now for everyone to do.
A great deal more could easily be written, and we hope some old servant
may also speak out in favor of domestic service, and so let it be again
what it has been, and when both will look on each other as they ought,
for there has always been master and servant, and we have the number of
servants, or near the number, given here by one who knows, 1,330,783
female domestic servants at the last census in 1911, and so the domestic
service is the largest single industry that is; there are more people
employed as domestic servants than any other class of employment.
Before closing this book the writer would ask that a kinder interest may
be taken in girls who may have at one time been in disgrace; many of
them have no homes and we might try to help them into situations. This
appeal is from the old housekeeper and so from one who has had many a
talk with young girls for their good; but they have often been led far
astray. We ought to give them the chance again, by trying to get them
situations, and if the lady is not her friend, nor the housekeeper, we
pity her.
3. The Reciprocal Character of Subordination and Superordination[231]
Every social occurrence consists of an interaction between individuals.
In other words, each individual is at the same time an active and a
passive agent in a transaction. In case of superiority and inferiority,
however, the relation assumes the appearance of a one-sided operation;
the one party appears to exert, while the other seems merely to receive,
an influence. Such, however, is not in fact the case. No one would give
himself the trouble to gain or to maintain superiority if it afforded
him no advantage or enjoyment. This return to the superior can be
derived from the relation, however, only by virtue of the fact that
there is a reciprocal action of the inferior upon the superior. The
decisive characteristic of the relation at this point is this, that the
effect which the inferior actually exerts upon the superior is
determined by the latter. The superior causes the inferior to produce a
given effect which the superior shall experience. In this operation, in
case the subordination is really absolute, no sort of spontaneity is
present on the part of the subordinate. The reciprocal influence is
rather the same as that between a man and a lifeless external object
with which the former performs an act for his own use. That is, the
person acts upon the object in order that the latter may react upon
himself. In this reaction of the object no spontaneity on the part of
the object is to be observed, but merely the further operation of the
spontaneity of the person. Such an extreme case of superiority and
inferiority will scarcely occur among human beings. Rather will a
certain measure of independence, a certain direction of the relation
proceed also from the self-will and the character of the subordinate.
The different cases of superiority and inferiority will accordingly be
characterized by differences in the relative amount of spontaneity which
the subordinates and the superiors bring to bear upon the total
relation. In exemplification of this reciprocal action of the inferior,
through which superiority and inferiority manifests itself as proper
socialization, I will mention only a few cases, in which the reciprocity
is difficult to discern.
When in the case of an absolute despotism the ruler attaches to his
edicts the threat of penalty or the promise of reward, the meaning is
that the monarch himself will be bound by the regulation which he has
ordained. The inferior shall have the right, on the other hand, to
demand something from the lawgiver. Whether the latter subsequently
grants the promised reward or protection is another question. The spirit
of the relation as contemplated by the law is that the superior
completely controls the inferior, to be sure, but that a certain claim
is assured to the latter, which claim he may press or may allow to
lapse, so that even this most definite form of the relation still
contains an element of spontaneity on the part of the inferior.
Still farther; the concept "law" seems to connote that he who gives the
law is in so far unqualifiedly superior. Apart from those cases in which
the law is instituted by those who will be its subjects, there appears
in lawgiving as such no sign of spontaneity on the part of the subject
of the law. It is, nevertheless, very interesting to observe how the
Roman conception of law makes prominent the reciprocity between the
superior and the subordinate elements. Thus _lex_ means originally
"compact," in the sense, to be sure, that the terms of the same are
fixed by the proponent, and the other party can accept or reject it only
_en bloc_. The _lex publica populi Romani_ meant originally that the
king proposed and the people accepted the same. Thus even here, where
the conception itself seems to express the complete one-sidedness of the
superior, the nice social instinct of the Romans pointed in the verbal
expression to the co-operation of the subordinate. In consequence of
like feeling of the nature of socialization the later Roman jurists
declared that the _societas leonina_ is not to be regarded as a social
compact. Where the one absolutely controls the other, that is, where all
spontaneity of the subordinate is excluded, there is no longer any
socialization.
Once more, the orator who confronts the assembly, or the teacher his
class, seems to be the sole leader, the temporary superior. Nevertheless
everyone who finds himself in that situation is conscious of the
limiting and controlling reaction of the mass which is apparently merely
passive and submissive to his guidance. This is the case not merely when
the parties immediately confront each other. All leaders are also led,
as in countless cases the master is the slave of his slaves. "I am your
leader, therefore I must follow you," said one of the most eminent
German parliamentarians, with reference to his party. Every journalist
is influenced by the public upon which he seems to exert an influence
entirely without reaction. The most characteristic case of actual
reciprocal influence, in spite of what appears to be subordination
without corresponding reaction, is that of hypnotic suggestion. An
eminent hypnotist recently asserted that in every hypnosis there occurs
an actual if not easily defined influence of the hypnotized upon the
hypnotist, and that without this the effect would not be produced.
4. Three Types of Subordination and Superordination[232]
Three possible types of superiority present themselves. Superiority may
be exercised (a) by an individual, (b) by a group, (c) by an
objective principle higher than individuals.
a) _Subordination to an individual._--The subordination of a group to
a single person implies a very decided unification of the group. This is
equally the case with both the characteristic forms of this
subordination, viz.: (1) when the group with its head constitutes a real
internal unity; when the superior is more a leader than a master and
only represents in himself the power and the will of the group; (2) when
the group is conscious of opposition between itself and its head, when a
party opposed to the head is formed. In both cases the unity of the
supreme head tends to bring about an inner unification of the group. The
elements of the latter are conscious of themselves as belonging
together, because their interests converge at one point. Moreover the
opposition to this unified controlling power compels the group to
collect itself, to condense itself into unity. This is true not alone
of the political group. In the factory, the ecclesiastical community, a
school class, and in associated bodies of every sort it is to be
observed that the termination of the organization in a head, whether in
case of harmony or of opposition, helps to effect unification of the
group. This is most conspicuous to be sure in the political sphere.
History has shown it to be the enormous advantage of monarchies that
they unify the political interests of the popular mass. The totality has
a common interest in holding the prerogatives of the crown within their
boundaries, possibly in restricting them; or there is a common field of
conflict between those whose interests are with the crown and those who
are opposed. Thus there is a supreme point with reference to which the
whole people constitutes either a single party or, at most, two. Upon
the disappearance of its head, to which all are subordinate--with the
end of this political pressure--all political unity often likewise
ceases. There spring up a great number of party factions which
previously, in view of that supreme political interest for or against
the monarchy, found no room.
Wonder has often been felt over the irrationality of the condition in
which a single person exercises lordship over a great mass of others.
The contradiction will be modified when we reflect that the ruler and
the individual subject in the controlled mass by no means enter into the
relationship with an equal _quantum_ of their personality. The mass is
composed through the fact that many individuals unite fractions of their
personality--one-sided purposes, interests and powers, while that which
each personality as such actually is towers above this common level and
does not at all enter into that "mass," i.e., into that which is really
ruled by the single person. Hence it is also that frequently in very
despotically ruled groups individuality may develop itself very freely,
in those aspects particularly which are not in participation with the
mass. Thus began the development of modern individuality in the
despotisms of the Italian Renaissance. Here, as in other similar cases
(for example, under Napoleon I and Napoleon III), it was for the direct
interest of the despots to allow the largest freedom to all those
aspects of personality which were not identified with the regulated
mass, i.e., to those aspects most apart from politics. Thus
subordination was more tolerable.
b) _Subordination to a group._--In the second place the group may
assume the form of a pyramid. In this case the subordinates stand over
against the superior not in an equalized mass but in very nicely graded
strata of power. These strata grow constantly smaller in extent but
greater in significance. They lead up from the inferior mass to the
head, the single ruler.
This form of the group may come into existence in two ways. It may
emerge from the autocratic supremacy of an individual. The latter often
loses the substance of his power and allows it to slip downward, while
retaining its form and titles. In this case more of the power is
retained by the orders nearest to the former autocrat than is acquired
by those more distant. Since the power thus gradually percolates, a
continuity and graduation of superiority and inferiority must develop
itself. This is, in fact, the way in which in oriental states the social
forms often arise. The power of the superior orders disintegrates,
either because it is essentially incoherent and does not know how to
attain the above-emphasized proportion between subordination and
individual freedom; or because the persons comprising the administration
are too indolent or too ignorant of governmental technique to preserve
supreme power. For the power which is exercised over a large circle is
never a constant possession. It must be constantly acquired and defended
anew if anything more than its shadow and name is to remain.
The other way in which a scale of power is constructed up to a supreme
head is the reverse of that just described. Starting with a relative
equality of the social elements, certain elements gain greater
significance; within the circle of influence thus constituted certain
especially powerful individuals differentiate themselves until this
development accommodates itself to one or to a few heads. The pyramid of
superiority and inferiority is built in this case from below upward,
while in the former case the development was from above downward. This
second form of development is often found in economic relationships,
where at first there exists a certain equality between the persons
carrying on the work of a certain industrial society. Presently some of
the number acquire wealth; others become poor; others fall into
intermediate conditions which are as dependent upon an aristocracy of
property as the lower orders are upon the middle strata; this
aristocracy rises in manifold gradations to the magnates, of whom
sometimes a single individual is appropriately designated as the "king"
of a branch of industry. By a sort of combination of the two ways in
which graded superiority and inferiority of the group come into being
the feudalism of the Middle Ages arose. So long as the full
citizen--either Greek, Roman, or Teutonic--knew no subordination under
an individual, there existed for him on the one hand complete equality
with those of his own order, but on the other hand rigid exclusiveness
toward those of lower orders. Feudalism remodeled this characteristic
social form into the equally characteristic arrangement which filled the
gap between freedom and bondage with a scale of classes.
A peculiar form of subordination to a number of individuals is
determination by vote of a majority. The presumption of majority rule is
that there is a collection of elements originally possessing equal
rights. In the process of voting the individual places himself in
subordination to a power of which he is a part, but in this way, that it
is left to his own volition whether he will belong to the superior or
the inferior, i.e., the outvoted party. We are not now interested in
cases of this complex problem in which the superiority is entirely
formal, as, for example, in resolves of scientific congresses, but only
with those in which the individual is constrained to an action by the
will of the party outvoting him, that is, in which he must practically
subordinate himself to the majority. This dominance of numbers through
the fact that others, though only equal in right, have another opinion,
is by no means the matter of course which it seems to us today in our
time of determinations by masses. Ancient German law knew nothing of it.
If one did not agree with the resolve of the community, he was not bound
by it. As an application of this principle, unanimity was later
necessary in the choice of king, evidently because it could not be
expected or required that one who had not chosen the king would obey
him. The English baron who had opposed authorizing a levy, or who had
not been present, often refused to pay it. In the tribal council of the
Iroquois, as in the Polish Parliament, decisions had to be unanimous.
There was therefore no subordination of an individual to a majority,
unless we consider the fact that a proposition was regarded as rejected
if it did not receive unanimous approval, a subordination, an outvoting,
of the person proposing the measure.
When, on the contrary, majority rule exists, two modes of subordination
of the minority are possible, and discrimination between them is of the
highest sociological significance. Control of the minority may, in the
first place, arise from the fact that the many are more powerful than
the few. Although, or rather because, the individuals participating in a
vote are supposed to be equals, the majority have the physical power to
coerce the minority. The taking of a vote and the subjection of the
minority serves the purpose of avoiding such actual measurement of
strength, but accomplishes practically the same result through the count
of votes, since the minority is convinced of the futility of such resort
to force. There exist in the group two parties in opposition as though
they were two groups, between which relative strength, represented by
the vote, is to decide.
Quite another principle is in force, however, in the second place, where
the group as a unity predominates over all individuals and so proceeds
that the passing of votes shall _merely give expression to the unitary
group will_. In the transition from the former to this second principle
the enormously important step is taken from a unity made up merely of
the sum of individuals to recognition and operation of an abstract
objective group unity. Classic antiquity took this step much
earlier--not only absolutely but relatively earlier--than the German
peoples. Among the latter the oneness of the community did not exist
over and against the individuals who composed it but entirely in them.
Consequently the group will was not only not enacted but it did not even
exist so long as a single member dissented. The group was not complete
unless all its members were united, since it was only in the sum of its
members that the group consisted. In case the group, however, is a
self-existent structure--whether consciously or merely in point of
fact--in case the group organization effected by union of the
individuals remains along with and in spite of the individual changes,
this self-existent unity--state, community, association for a
distinctive purpose--must surely will and act in a definite manner.
Since, however, only one of two contradictory opinions can ultimately
prevail, it is assumed as more probable that the majority knows or
represents this will better than the minority. According to the
presumptive principle involved the minority is, in this case, not
excluded but included. The subordination of the minority is thus in this
stage of sociological development quite different from that in case the
majority simply represents the stronger power. In the case in hand the
majority does not speak in its own name but in that of the ideal unity
and totality. It is only to this unity, which speaks by the mouth of the
majority, that the minority subordinates itself. This is the immanent
principle of our parliamentary decisions.
c) _Subordination to an impersonal principle._--To these must be
joined, third, those formations in which subordination is neither to an
individual nor yet to a majority, but to an impersonal objective
principle. Here, where we seem to be estopped from speaking of a
_reciprocal influence_ between the superior and the subordinate, a
sociological interest enters in but two cases: first, when this ideal
superior principle is to be interpreted as the psychological
consolidation of a real social power; second, when the principle
establishes specific and characteristic relationships between those who
are subject to it in common. The former case appears chiefly in
connection with the moral imperatives. In the moral consciousness we
feel ourselves subject to a decree which does not appear to be issued by
any personal human power; we hear the voice of conscience only in
ourselves, although with a force and definiteness, in contrast with all
subjective egoism, which, as it seems, could have had its source only
from an authority outside the subject. As is well known, the attempt has
been made to resolve this contradiction by the assumption that we have
derived the content of morality from social decrees. Whatever is
serviceable to the species and to the group, whatever on that account is
demanded of the members for the self-preservation of the group, is
gradually bred into individuals as an instinct, so that it asserts
itself as a peculiar autonomous impression by the side of the properly
personal, and consequently often contradictory, impulses. Thus would be
explained the double character of the moral command. On the one side it
appears to us as an impersonal order to which we have simply to yield.
On the other side, however, no visible external power but only our own
most real and personal instinct enforces it upon us. Sociologically this
is of interest as an example of a wholly peculiar form of reaction
between the individual and his group. The social force is here
completely grown into the individual himself.
We now turn to the second sociological question raised by the case of
subordination to an impersonal ideal principle. How does this
subordination affect the reciprocal relation of the persons thus
subordinated in common? The development of the position of the _pater
familias_ among the Aryans exhibits this process clearly. The power of
the _pater familias_ was originally unlimited and entirely subjective;
that is, his momentary desire, his personal advantage, was permitted to
give the decision upon all regulations. But this arbitrary power
gradually became limited by a feeling of responsibility. The unity of
the domestic group, embodied in the _spiritus familiaris_, grew into the
ideal power, in relation to which the lord of the whole came to regard
himself as merely an obedient agent. Accordingly it follows that morals
and custom, instead of subjective preference, determine his acts, his
decisions, his judicial judgments; that he no longer behaves as though
he were absolute lord of the family property, but rather the manager of
it in the interest of the whole; that his position bears more the
character of an official station than that of an unlimited right. Thus
the relation between superiors and inferiors is placed upon an entirely
new basis. The family is thought of as standing above all the individual
members. The guiding patriarch himself is, like every other member,
subordinate to the family idea. He may give directions to the other
members of the family only in the name of the higher ideal unity.
C. CONFLICT AND ACCOMMODATION
1. War and Peace as Types of Conflict and Accommodation[233]
It is obvious that the transition from war to peace must present a more
considerable problem than the reverse, i.e., the transition from peace
to war. The latter really needs no particular scrutiny. For the
situations existing in time of peace are precisely the conditions out of
which war emerges and contain in themselves struggle in a diffused,
unobserved, or latent form. For instance, if the economic advantage
which the southern states of the American Union had over the northern
states in the Civil War as a consequence of the slave system was also
the reason for this war, still, so long as no antagonism arises from it,
but is merely immanent in the existing conditions, this source of
conflict did not become specifically a question of war and peace. At the
moment, however, at which the antagonism began to assume a color which
meant war, an accumulation of antagonisms, feelings of hatred,
newspaper polemics, frictions between private persons, and on the
borders reciprocal moral equivocations in matters outside of the central
antithesis at once manifested themselves. The transition from peace to
war is thus not distinguished by a special sociological situation.
Rather out of relationships existing within a peaceful situation
antagonism is developed immediately, in its most visible and, energetic
form. The case is different, however, if the matter is viewed from the
opposite direction. Peace does not follow so immediately upon conflict.
The termination of strife is a special undertaking which belongs neither
in the one category nor in the other, like a bridge which is of a
different nature from that of either bank which it unites. The sociology
of struggle demands, therefore, at least as an appendix, an analysis of
the forms in which conflict is terminated, and these exhibit certain
special forms of reaction not to be observed in other circumstances.
The particular motive which in most cases corresponds with the
transition from war to peace is the simple longing for peace. With the
emergence of this factor there comes into being, as a matter of fact,
peace itself, at first in the form of the wish immediately parallel with
the struggle itself, and it may without any special transitional form
displace struggle. We need not pause long to observe that the desire for
peace may spring up both directly and indirectly; the former may occur
either through the return to power of this peaceful character in the
party which is essentially in favor of peace; or through the fact that,
through the mere change of the formal stimulus of struggle and of peace
which is peculiar to all natures, although in different rhythms, the
latter comes to the surface and assumes a control which is sanctioned by
its own nature alone. In the case of the indirect motive, however, we
may distinguish, on the one hand, the exhaustion of resources which,
without removal of the persistent contentiousness, may instal the demand
for peace; and, on the other hand, the withdrawal of interest from
struggle through a higher interest in some other object. The latter case
begets all sorts of hypocrisies and self-deceptions. It is asserted and
believed that peace is desired from ideal interest in peace itself and
the suppression of antagonism, while in reality only the object fought
for has lost its interest and the fighters would prefer to have their
powers free for other kinds of activity.
The simplest and most radical sort of passage from war to peace is
victory--a quite unique phenomenon in life, of which there are, to be
sure, countless individual forms and measures, which, however, have no
resemblance to any of the otherwise mentioned forms which may occur
between persons. Victory is a mere watershed between war and peace; when
considered absolutely, only an ideal structure which extends itself over
no considerable time. For so long as struggle endures there is no
definitive victor, and when peace exists a victory _has been_ gained but
the act of victory has ceased to exist. Of the many shadings of victory,
through which it qualifies the following peace, I mention here merely as
an illustration the one which is brought about, not exclusively by the
preponderance of the one party, but, at least in part, through the
resignation of the other. This confession of inferiority, this
acknowledgment of defeat, or this consent that victory shall go to the
other party without complete exhaustion of the resources and chances for
struggle, is by no means always a simple phenomenon. A certain ascetic
tendency may also enter in as a purely individual factor, the tendency
to self-humiliation and to self-sacrifice, not strong enough to
surrender one's self from the start without a struggle, but emerging so
soon as the consciousness of being vanquished begins to take possession
of the soul; or another variation may be that of finding its supreme
charm in the contrast to the still vital and active disposition to
struggle. Still further, there is impulse to the same conclusion in the
feeling that it is worthier to yield rather than to trust to the last
moment in the improbable chance of a fortunate turn of affairs. To throw
away this chance and to elude at this price the final consequences that
would be involved in utter defeat--this has something of the great and
noble qualities of men who are sure, not merely of their strengths, but
also of their weaknesses, without making it necessary for them in each
case to make these perceptibly conscious. Finally, in this voluntariness
of confessed defeat there is a last proof of power on the part of the
agent; the latter has of himself been able to act. He has therewith
virtually made a gift to the conqueror. Consequently, it is often to be
observed in personal conflicts that the concession of the one party,
before the other has actually been able to compel it, is regarded by the
latter as a sort of insult, as though this latter party were really the
weaker, to whom, however, for some reason or other, there is made a
concession without its being really necessary. Behind the objective
reasons for yielding "for the sake of sweet peace" a mixture of these
subjective motives is not seldom concealed. The latter may not be
entirely without visible consequences, however, for the further
sociological attitude of the parties. In complete antithesis with the
end of strife by victory is its ending by compromise. One of the most
characteristic ways of subdividing struggles is on the basis of whether
they are of a nature which admits of compromise or not.
2. Compromise and Accommodation[234]
On the whole, compromise, especially of that type which is brought to
pass through negotiation, however commonplace and matter of fact it has
come to be in the processes of modern life, is one of the most important
inventions for the uses of civilization. The impulse of uncivilized men,
like that of children, is to seize upon every desirable object without
further consideration, even though it be already in the possession of
another. Robbery and gift are the most naïve forms of transfer of
possession, and under primitive conditions change of possession seldom
takes place without a struggle. It is the beginning of all civilized
industry and commerce to find a way of avoiding this struggle through a
process in which there is offered to the possessor of a desired object
some other object from the possessions of the person desiring the
exchange. Through this arrangement a reduction is made in the total
expenditure of energy as compared with the process of continuing or
beginning a struggle. All exchange is a compromise. We are told of
certain social conditions in which it is accounted as knightly to rob
and to fight for the sake of robbery; while exchange and purchase are
regarded in the same society as undignified and vulgar. The
psychological explanation of this situation is to be found partly in the
fact of the element of compromise in exchange, the factors of withdrawal
and renunciation which make exchange the opposite pole to all struggle
and conquest. Every exchange presupposes that values and interest have
assumed an objective character. The decisive element is accordingly no
longer the mere subjective passion of desire, to which struggle alone
corresponds, but the value of the object, which is recognized by both
interested parties but which without essential modification may be
represented by various objects. Renunciation of the valued object in
question, because one receives in another form the quantum of value
contained in the same, is an admirable reason, wonderful also in its
simplicity, whereby opposed interests are brought to accommodation
without struggle. It certainly required a long historical development to
make such means available, because it presupposes a psychological
generalization of the universal valuation of the individual object, an
abstraction, in other words, of the value for the objects with which it
is at first identified; that is, it presupposes ability to rise above
the prejudices of immediate desire. Compromise by representation, of
which exchange is a special case, signifies in principle, although
realized only in part, the possibility of avoiding struggle or of
setting a limit to it before the mere force of the interested parties
has decided the issue.
In distinction from the objective character of accommodation of struggle
through compromise, we should notice that conciliation is a purely
subjective method of avoiding struggle. I refer here not to that sort of
conciliation which is the consequence of a compromise or of any other
adjournment of struggle but rather to the reasons for this adjournment.
The state of mind which makes conciliation possible is an elementary
attitude which, entirely apart from objective grounds, seeks to end
struggle, just as, on the other hand, a disposition to quarrel, even
without any real occasion, promotes struggle. Probably both mental
attitudes have been developed as matters of utility in connection with
certain situations; at any rate, they have been developed
psychologically to the extent of independent impulses, each of which is
likely to make itself felt where the other would be more practically
useful. We may even say that in the countless cases in which struggle is
ended otherwise than in the pitiless consistency of the exercise of
force, this quite elementary and unreasoned tendency to conciliation is
a factor in the result--a factor quite distinct from weakness, or good
fellowship; from social morality or fellow-feeling. This tendency to
conciliation is, in fact, a quite specific sociological impulse which
manifests itself exclusively as a pacificator, and is not even identical
with the peaceful disposition in general. The latter avoids strife under
all circumstances, or carries it on, if it is once undertaken, without
going to extremes, and always with the undercurrents of longing for
peace. The spirit of conciliation, however, manifests itself frequently
in its full peculiarity precisely after complete surrender to the
struggle, after the conflicting energies have exercised themselves to
the full in the conflict.
Conciliation depends very definitely upon the external situation. It can
occur both after the complete victory of the one party and after the
progress of indecisive struggle, as well as after the arrangement of the
compromise. Either of these situations may end the struggle without the
added conciliation of the opponents. To bring about the latter it is not
necessary that there shall be a supplementary repudiation or expression
of regret with reference to the struggle. Moreover, conciliation is to
be distinguished from the situation which may follow it. This may be
either a relationship of attachment or alliance, and reciprocal respect,
or a certain permanent distance which avoids all positive contacts.
Conciliation is thus a removal of the roots of conflict, without
reference to the fruits which these formerly bore, as well as to that
which may later be planted in their place.
D. COMPETITION, STATUS, AND SOCIAL SOLIDARITY
1. Personal Competition, Social Selection, and Status[235]
The function of personal competition, considered as a part of the social
system, is to assign to each individual his place in that system. If
"all the world's a stage," this is a process that distributes the parts
among the players. It may do it well or ill, but after some fashion it
does it. Some may be cast in parts unsuited to them; good actors may be
discharged altogether and worse ones retained; but nevertheless the
thing is arranged in some way and the play goes on.
That such a process must exist can hardly, it seems to me, admit of
question; in fact, I believe that those who speak of doing away with
competition use the word in another sense than is here intended. Within
the course of the longest human life there is necessarily a complete
renewal of the persons whose communication and co-operation make up the
life of society. The new members come into the world without any legible
sign to indicate what they are fit for, a mystery to others from the
first and to themselves as soon as they are capable of reflection: the
young man does not know for what he is adapted, and no one else can tell
him. The only possible way to get light upon the matter is to adopt the
method of experiment. By trying one thing and another and by reflecting
upon his experience, he begins to find out about himself, and the world
begins to find out about him. His field of investigation is of course
restricted, and his own judgment and that of others liable to error, but
the tendency of it all can hardly be other than to guide his choice to
that one of the available careers in which he is best adapted to hold
his own. I may say this much, perhaps, without assuming anything
regarding the efficiency or justice of competition as a distributor of
social functions, a matter regarding which I shall offer some
suggestions later. All I wish to say here is that the necessity of some
selective process is inherent in the conditions of social life.
It will be apparent that, in the sense in which I use the term,
competition is not necessarily a hostile contention, nor even something
of which the competing individual is always conscious. From our infancy
onward throughout life judgments are daily forming regarding us of which
we are unaware, but which go to determine our careers. "The world is
full of judgment days." A and B, for instance, are under consideration
for some appointment; the experience and personal qualifications of each
are duly weighed by those having the appointment to make, and A, we will
say, is chosen. Neither of the two need know anything about the matter
until the selection is made. It is eligibility to perform some social
function that makes a man a competitor, and he may or may not be aware
of it, or, if aware of it, he may or may not be consciously opposed to
others. I trust that the reader will bear in mind that I always use the
word competition in the sense here explained.
There is but one alternative to competition as a means of determining
the place of the individual in the social system, and that is some form
of status, some fixed, mechanical rule, usually a rule of inheritance,
which decides the function of the individual without reference to his
personal traits, and thus dispenses with any process of comparison. It
is possible to conceive of a society organized entirely upon the basis
of the inheritance of functions, and indeed societies exist which may be
said to approach this condition. In India, for example, the prevalent
idea regarding the social function of the individual is that it is
unalterably determined by his parentage, and the village blacksmith,
shoemaker, accountant, or priest has his place assigned to him by a rule
of descent as rigid as that which governs the transmission of one of the
crowns of Europe. If all functions were handed down in this way, if
there were never any deficiency or surplus of children to take the place
of their parents, if there were no progress or decay in the social
system making necessary new activities or dispensing with old ones, then
there would be no use for a selective process. But precisely in the
measure that a society departs from this condition, that individual
traits are recognized and made available, or social change of any sort
comes to pass, in that measure must there be competition.
Status is not an active process, as competition is; it is simply a rule
of conservation, a makeshift to avoid the inconveniences of continual
readjustment in the social structure. Competition or selection is the
only constructive principle, and everything worthy the name of
organization had at some time or other a competitive origin. At the
present day the eldest son of a peer may succeed to a seat in the House
of Lords simply by right of birth; but his ancestor got the seat by
competition, by some exercise of personal qualities that made him valued
or loved or feared by a king or a minister.
Sir Henry Maine has pointed out that the increase of competition is a
characteristic trait of modern life, and that the powerful ancient
societies of the old world were for the most part non-competitive in
their structure. While this is true, it would be a mistake to draw the
inference that status is a peculiarly natural or primitive principle of
organization and competition a comparatively recent discovery. On the
contrary the spontaneous relations among men, as we see in the case of
children, and as we may infer from the life of the lower animals, are
highly competitive, personal prowess and ascendency being everything and
little regard being paid to descent simply as such. The régime of
inherited status, on the other hand, is a comparatively complex and
artificial product, necessarily of later growth, whose very general
prevalence among the successful societies of the old world is doubtless
to be explained by the stability and consequently the power which it was
calculated to give to the social system. It survived because under
certain conditions it was the fittest. It was not and is not
universally predominant among savages or barbarous peoples. With the
American Indians, for example, the definiteness and authority of status
were comparatively small, personal prowess and initiative being
correspondingly important. The interesting monograph on Omaha sociology,
by Dorsey, published by the United States Bureau of Ethnology, contains
many facts showing that the life of this people was highly competitive.
When the tribe was at war any brave could organize an expedition against
the enemy, if he could induce enough others to join him, and this
organizer usually assumed the command. In a similar way the managers of
the hunt were chosen because of personal skill; and, in general, "any
man can win a name and rank in the state by becoming 'wacuce' or brave,
either in war or by the bestowal of gifts and the frequent giving of
feasts."