The social group, in its descent from the herd, has become an
intensely competitive, highly cooperative organization. There are
two sets of qualities essential to those phases of society that
concern us as students of character.
Out of the mass there come the leaders, those who direct and
organize the thought and action of the group. The leader, in no
matter what sphere he operates, excels in some quality: strength,
courage, audacity, wisdom, organizing ability, eloquence,--or in
pretension to that quality. The leader is a high variable and
somehow is endowed with more of a desired or desirable character
than others. As fighter, thinker or preacher he has made the
history of man. A dozen million common men did not invent the
wheel; it was one aboriginal genius who played with power and saw
that the rolling log might transport his goods. The shadow may
have interested in a mild way every contemporary and ancestor of
the one who discovered that it moved regularly with the sun. And
when a group is confronted by an unknown danger, it is not the
half-courage of the crowd that adds up to bravery and fearless
fighting spirit; it is the one man who responds to the challenge
with courage and sagacity who inspires the rest with a similar
feeling. The leaders of the world stand on each other's
shoulders, and not on the shoulders of the common man. Democracy
does not lie in an equal estimate of men's abilities and worth;
it is in the recognition that the true aristocrat or leader may
arise anywhere; that he must be allowed to develop, no matter who
his ancestors and what his sex or color may be; and that he has
no privileges but those of service and leadership.
The leadership qualities will always be determined by the
character of the group that is to be led and the task to be
performed. Obviously he who is to lead a warrior group of small
numbers in a fray needs be agile, quick of mind, strong and
fearless, whereas a general who sits in a chair at a desk ten
miles from the fighting front and controls a million men fighting
with airships, guns and bayonets must be a technical engineer of
executive ability and experience. The leader whose task is to
exhort a group into some plan of action--the politician, the
popular speaker--needs mainly to appeal to the sympathies and
stir the emotions of his group; his desire to please must be
efficiently yoked with qualities that please his group, and those
qualities will not be the same for a group of East Side
immigrants as for a select Fifth Avenue assemblage. In the one
instance an uncouth, unrestrained passion, fiercely emphasized,
and a bold declaration of ideals of an altruistic type will be
necessary; in the second all that will be ridiculous, but passion
hinted at with suave polished speech and a careful outline of
practical plans are essential. The labor leader, the leader of a
capitalist group, will be different in many qualities, but they
will be alike in their vigor and energy of purpose, in their
aggressive fighting spirit, their proneness to anger at
opposition but controlled when necessary by tact and diplomacy.
They will impress the group they lead as being sincere, honest,
able, knowing how to plan, choose and fight. These last three
qualities are those which the members of the group demand; the
leader must know how to plan, choose and fight for them. Nor, if
he is to succeed easily, must he be too idealistic; he must not
seek too distant purposes; the group must understand him, and
though he must keep them in some awe and fear of him, yet must
they feel that he represents an understandable ideal. The leader
who preaches things out of comprehension arouses the kind of
opposition which finally crucifies him.
The leader must feel superiority to his group, and whether he
proclaims it or not, he usually does. Now and then he is a cold,
careful planner, an actor of emotions he does not feel, a cynic
playing on passions and ideals he does not share. Usually he is
deeply emotional, sometimes deeply intellectual, but not often;
generally he has his ears to the ground and listens for the stir
that tells the way men wish to be led. Then he mounts his horse,
literally or figuratively, brandishes his sword and shouts his
commands.
A leader springs up in every group, under almost all kinds of
circumstances. Let ten men start out for a walk, and in ten
minutes one of them, for some reason or another, is giving the
orders, is choosing and commanding. Often enough the leadership
falls to social rank and standing rather than to leadership
qualities. In fact, that is the chief defect in a society which
builds up rank and social station; leadership falls then to men
by virtue of birth, financial status or some non-relevant
distinction. All one has to do is to read of the misfit leaders
England's "best" turned out to be in the early part of the late
war to realize how inefficient and untrustworthy such leadership
may be. One meaning of democracy is that no man is a leader by
virtue of anything but his virtues, and that opportunity must be
given to the real leader to come into his own.
Leadership means neither selfishness nor altruism, nor does it
connote wisdom. A leader may be rankly egoistic and careless of
the welfare of his people--Alexander, Napoleon--or he may be
imbued with a mission which is altruistic but unwise. Such, in my
opinion, was Peter the Hermit who started the Crusades. The wise
men of the world lead only indirectly,--by a permeation of their
thoughts, slowly, into the thought of the leaders of the race and
from them downwards. Adam Smith exerted a great influence. But
how many read his books? The leaders of thought did, and they
extended his teachings into the community, but certainly not as
Adam Smith taught. Christ made an upheaval in Jerusalem and its
vicinity; a few leaders taught revisions of His doctrines, and as
the doctrines passed along, they became institutionalized and
dogmatized into a total, made up as much of paganism as of
Christ's teachings. It is the tragedy of those whose names
exercise authority in the world that their teachings are often
without great influence. For all of Christ's teachings, the
Christian nations plunge into great wars and repudiate His
doctrines as applicable neither to industry nor international
relations.
If the leader needs certain qualities, the follower needs others.
He must be capable of attachment to the leader or his
institution; he must possess that quality called loyalty. Loyalty
is the transference of the ego-feeling to the group, an
institution or an individual. It has in it perhaps the
self-abasement principle of McDougall, but perhaps it is just as
well to say that admiration, respect and confidence are basic in
it. Loyalty differs from love only in that there is a sort of
inferiority denoted in the first. If you feel yourself superior
to the person or institution claiming your loyalty, you are not
loyal in feeling, though you may be in act; you are bound by
honor or love and not by loyalty.
Loyalty in the inferior may be awakened by many things, but to be
permanent the follower must sooner or later feel himself a part
of the program. He must have not only duties and responsibilities
but benefits, and he must be given a visible symbol of
membership. A child becomes loyal when he is given a badge or
title, and so do men. This is the meaning of uniforms, badges,
titles and privileges; they are symbols of "belonging" and so
become symbols of loyalty. From the higher intellects loyalty can
only be won if they have a share in conference, in the exertion
of power and in identification with the institution in a
privileged way. Though cash and direct benefit do not insure
loyalty, they go a long way toward getting it. Many a man who is
a rebel as a workman is loyal as a foreman, and while here and
there is one who is loyal and leal{sic} whether the wind blows
good or ill, the history and proverbs of men tell very plainly
that loyalty usually disappears with the downfall of the leader,
or when benefits of one kind or another are too long delayed. A
man may be loyal to the leader or institution powerful and
splendid in his youth (usually pride is as much involved as
loyalty), but his children never are.
Disciplinability is a quality of the follower. He must be willing
to sacrifice his freedom of action and choice and turn it over to
another. Rules and regulations are necessary for efficiency. In a
larger sense, they become laws, and the law-abiding are the
disciplined, ready to obey whatever law. Thus the reformers do
not come from the law-abiding in spirit; it is the rebel who
changes laws. Without the law-abiding, disciplined spirit there
would be only anarchy, and though men have obeyed frightful laws
and still do, this is better than no social discipline. A
revolution occurs when the discipline, i.e., the rules and
regulations and the rulers and regulators, have not kept pace
with the new ideas that have permeated society. Men are willing
to be governed; nay, they demand it, but there must be at least a
rude conformity between the governed and the laws by which they
are governed. In other words, discipline of any kind is welcome
if the disciplined believe it to be right and just. Men accept
punishment for infraction of a law if they believe themselves to
be rightfully punished, but rebel against unjust discipline.
There are those who deny either openly or covertly the right of
society to regulate their lives or desires. In modern literature
this type of rebel is quite favor, ably depicted, although he is
usually represented as finally punished in one way or another.
Where a man rebels against a specific type of restriction but
favors another kind he is a reformer; if however he favors merely
the removal of restriction and regulation[1] he is an anarchist
and, in my opinion, without real knowledge of life. While the
rebel who denies the right of discipline exists, he is rare; the
commonest rebel does not deny society's right to regulate but
either will not or cannot keep his rebel desires in conformity.
Most criminals are of this type, and the inability to conform may
arise from many defects in training or original character.
[1] Watch a busy crossing when the traffic policeman is at work,
regulating and disciplining. Everything is orderly,
smooth-working, and no one complains. Let him step away for a
moment; at once there is confusion, danger and the intensely
competitive spirit of the drivers comes out, with the skillful
and reckless and selfish invading the rights of the less skilled,
timid and considerate. The policeman's return is welcomed by the
bulk of the drivers. There are very many points of similarity
between society and the busy crossing which need no elaboration
on my part.
In fact, though we may rebel against discipline and its various
social modifications, most of us are quite anxious that others
shall be disciplined and raise the hue and cry at once when they
rebel. Behind this dislike of the rebel is certainly the feeling
that he predicates a superiority for himself by so doing, and
this injures our self-esteem. Of course there is and may be a
genuine belief that he menaces society and its stability, but
those who raise this cry the loudest are usually themselves
menaced either in authority and power or in some more direct
cashable value.
The qualities which are now to be briefly discussed are in the
main great inhibitions. The moral code is in great part and by
the majority of men understood as inhibition and prohibition. A
man is held to be honest if he does not steal and truthful if he
does not lie. In reality this conception is largely correct, and
it is as we extend our ideas of stealing and lying that we grow
in morality.
Honesty, in relation to property, is the control of the
acquisitive impulses and instincts and is wrapped up with the
idea of private property. The acquisitive impulses are very
strong in most people but not necessarily in all, and we find
great variability here as elsewhere in human character. One child
desires everything he sees, wants it for his own and does not
wish others even to touch it, while another gives away everything
he has. The covetous, the indifferent, the generous, the
hoarders, the spenders,--these are a few of the types one finds
every day in relation to the property and acquisitive feelings.
The spirit of "mine" needs on the whole little encouragement,
though the ways to achieve "mine" are part of education. Mainly
the spirit of "thine" needs encouragement, and most of our law,
as differentiated from religion and ethics, has been built up on
settling disputes in this matter. In its primary form, honesty in
relation to property is the willingness to conform to society's
rulings in this matter, e.g., the belief in ownership as sacred
and that to acquire something desired one must (ethical must) go
through certain recognized procedures. The whole conception rests
on the social instinct's inhibitions of the acquisitive instinct
and in the growth and strength of feelings of conscience and duty
as previously described. Social heredity and tradition operate
very powerfully in the matter of this kind of honesty; to steal,
as we see it, from neighboring tribes is ethical for savage
races, and even to steal such property as women. Throughout the
ages the booty of war was one of the recognized rights of
warriors, and even though to-day we have conventions protecting
the private property of the enemy, this is one of those rules
definitely understood as made to be broken.
Stealing is very common among children, who find their desire for
good things too strong to be inhibited. But very quickly the
average child learns control in so far as certain types of
stealing are concerned. Some, however, never cease to steal, and
in my opinion and experience this is true of those who become
thieves later on. In very few cases do those who are eventually
pickpockets and second-story men first develop their art in
adolescence or youth; they have stolen from earliest childhood.
Those who steal for the first time in adult life are usually
those exposed to great temptations and occupying a position of
trust, such as the bank officer or the trusted employee. Here the
stress of overexpensive tastes, of some financial burden or the
desire to get rich quick through speculation overcome inhibition,
especially as it is too often assumed by the speculator that he
will be able to return the money.
How widespread petty stealing is will be attested to by the hotel
keeper and high-grade restaurant owner, whose yearly losses of
linen, silver and bric-a-brac are enormous. The "best" people do
not think it really wrong to do this, especially if the things
taken have a souvenir value. Farmers whose fruit trees adjoin a
public thoroughfare will also state that the average automobilist
has quite a different code of morals for apples and pears than
for money and gasoline.
"Caveat emptor"--let the buyer beware! This has been the motto of
the seller of merchandise since the beginning of trade. It has
made for a lot of cheating of various kinds, some of which has
persisted as part of the practice of at least many merchants up
to this day. Cheating in weight or quantity led to laws; and
there cannot be any relaxation in these laws, or false scales and
measures immediately appear. Cheating in quality led to
adulterations in food stuffs which were veritably poisonous, so
that it became necessary for each great nation to pass stringent
laws to prevent very respectable and very rich men from poisoning
their customers. Cheating in fabrics still flourishes and in
unsuspected quarters, not always those of the small dealer. And,
misrepresentation flourished in advertising openly and blatantly
until very recently. It is true that advertising has changed its
tastes and uses dignified and high-flown language, protesting the
abnormally virtuous ideal of service of the article advertised;
but can it be true that the makers of every car believe it to be
so remarkable in performance and appearance?
To the credit of American merchants let it be stated that a
widespread improvement has taken place in these matters, and that
on the whole there never was a more unanimous determination to
render service as at present. Yet while the goal of business is
profit, and the goal of the buyer is the bargain, so long will
there be a mutual over-reaching that does not fall far short of
dishonesty.
There are types that are scrupulously honest in that they will
not take a penny of value not obtained in the orthodox way of
buying, trading or earning, who will take advantage of necessity,
whose moral code does not include that fine sense of honor that
spurns taking advantage of adversity. These are the real
profiteers, and in the last analysis they add to their dishonesty
an essential cruelty, though often they are pillars of the
church.
I have dwelt on the dishonest; the types of honest men and women
who give full value in work and goods to all whom they deal with
are of course more numerous. The industrial world revolves around
those who resist temptation, who work faithfully, who give honest
measure and seek no unfair advantage. But that business is no
brotherhood is an old story, and poor human nature finds itself
forced by necessity and competition into ways that are devious
and not strictly honest. It's the system that is at fault, for
men have formed a scheme of creating and distributing values that
severely tries and often weakens their ideals.
Truth in the sense of saying what is true and truth in the sense
of getting at ultimate relations are two different matters. The
first kind of truth is the basis of social intercourse, the
second kind the goal of philosophic efforts.
Speaking the truth invariably is not an easy matter and in the
strictest sense is quite questionable as to value. The white lie,
so-called, the pleasant, assumed interest, the untruth intended
to smooth social relations are shock absorbers and are part of
the courtesy technique.
In a more technical sense, the untruth told to obtain some
advantage or to escape the disagreeable in one form or another is
held to be dishonorable, but is very widely practiced. People are
enraged at being deceived if the deception is the work of an
outsider or one not liked; they are shocked if deceived, lied to,
by one they love. The lie stands as the symbol of weakness, but
to be "taken in" has more than the material hurt the lie
inflicts; it wounds vanity and brings doubt and suspicion into
social relations, all of which are very disagreeable. It is held
by ethical teachers to be worse to lie about faults than to have
committed the faults, though this may be modified to mean only
the minor faults.
All judges and lawyers will testify that "the truth, the whole
truth and nothing but the truth" is very seldom told in court.
Controversy is the enemy of truth, and when the fighting spirit
is aroused, candor disappears. Where any great interest is
involved, where the opponent is seeking to dispossess or to evade
payment, or where legal punishment may be felt, the truth must be
forced from most people. Moreover, passion blinds, and the
natural and astonishing inaccuracy in observation and
reporting[1] that every psychologist knows is multiplied wherever
great emotions are at work. If perjury were really punished, the
business of the courts would be remarkably increased.
[1] Not only is this true in law but in all controversy, whether
theological, scientific, social or personal, the ego-feeling
enters in its narrowest and blindest aspects to defeat honor,
justice and truth.
All this is normal lying,--not habitual but occurring under
certain circumstances. As clearly motivated is the lying of the
braggart, the one who invents stories that emphasize his
exceptional qualities. The braggart however is a mere novice as
compared with the "pathological liar," who does not seem able to
tell the truth, who invents continually and who will often
deceive a whole group before he is found out. The motive here is
that curious type of superiority seeking which is the desire to
be piteously interesting, to hold the center of the stage by
virtue of adverse adventures or misfortunes. Hence the wild
white-slave yarns and the "orphan child" who has been abused.
Every police department knows these girls and boys, as does every
social service agency.
I am afraid we all yield to the desire to be interesting or to
make artistic our adventures. To tell of what happens to us, of
what we have seen or said or done exactly as it was, is
difficult, not only because of faulty memory, but because we like
to make the tale more like a story, because, let us say, of the
artist in us. Life is so incomplete and unfinished! We so rarely
retort as we should have! And a bald recital of most events is
not interesting and so,--the proportions are altered, humor is
introduced, the conversation becomes more witty, especially our
share, and the adventure is made a little more thrilling. And
each who tells of it adds little or much, and in the end what is
told never happened. "The Devil is the father of lies," runs the
old proverb. If so, we have all given birth to some of his
children.
Though direct lying is held to be harmful and socially
disastrous, and evidence of either fear and cowardice or
malevolence, the essential honesty of people is usually summed up
in the term sincerity. The advance of civilization is marked by
the appearance of toleration, the recognition that belief is a
private right, especially as concerns religion, and that
sincerity in belief is more important than the nature of belief.
What is really implied by sincerity is the absence of camouflage
or disguise, so that it becomes possible to know what a man
believes and thinks by his words and his acts. As a matter of
fact, that ideal is neither realized nor desirable, and it is as
wise and natural to inhibit the expression of our beliefs and
feelings as it is to inhibit our actions. To be frank with a man,
to tell him sincerely that we believe he is a scoundrel, and that
we hate him and to show this feeling by act, would be to plunge
the world into barbarism. We must disguise hate, and there are
times when we must disguise love. Sincerity is at the best only
relative; we ought to be sincere about love, religion and the
validity of our purposes, but in the little relationships
sincerity must be replaced by caution, courtesy and the needs of
efficiency. In reality we ask for sincerity only in what is
pleasant to us; the sincere whose frankness and honesty offend we
call boors.
Sincere self-revelation, if well done, is one of the most
esteemed forms of literary production. Montaigne's preface to his
"Essays" is a promise that he lived up to in the sincerity and
frankness of his self and other analysis. "Pepy's Diary" charms
because the naked soul of an Englishman of the seventeenth
century is laid before us, with its trivialities, lusts,
repentance and aspirations. In the latter nineteenth century,
Mary MacLane's diary had an extraordinary vogue because of the
apparent sincerity of the eager original nature there revealed.
We love young children because their selfishness, their
curiosity, their "real" nature, is shown to us in their every
word and act. In their presence we are relaxed, off our guard and
not forced to that eternal hiding and studying that the society
of our equals imposes on us.
We all long for sincerity, but the too sincere are treated much
as the skeptic of Bjoriasen's tale, who was killed by his
friends. As they stood around his body, one said to the other,
"There lies one who kicked us around like a football." The dead
man spoke, "Ah, yes, but I always kicked you to the goal." The
sincere of purpose must always keep his sincerity from wounding
too deeply; he must always be careful and include his own foibles
and failings in his attack, and he must make his efforts witty,
so that he may have the help of laughter. But here the danger is
that he will be listed as a pleasant comedian, and his serious
purpose will be balked by his reputation.
Sincerity, thus, is relative, and the insincere are those whose
purposes, declared by themselves to be altruistic, are none the
less egoistic, whose attachments and affections, loudly
protested, are not lasting and never intense, and whose manners
do not reflect what they themselves are but what they think will
be pleasing and acceptable to others. The relatively sincere seek
to make their outer behavior conform, within the possibilities,
to their inner natures; they are polite but not gushing, devoted
to their friends at heart and in deed, but not too friendly to
their enemies or to those they dislike, and they believe in their
own purposes as good. The unhappiest state possible is when one
starts to question the sincerity and validity of one's own
purposes, from which there results an agonizing paralysis of
purpose. The sincere inspire with faith and cooperation, if there
is a unity of interest, but it must not be forgotten that others
are inspired to hatred and rivalry, if the sincerity is along
antagonistic lines. We are apt to forget that sincerity, like
love, faith and hope, is a beautiful word, but the quality of
sincerity, like the other qualities, may be linked with misguided
purpose. No one doubts the sincerity of the Moslem hordes of the
eighth century in desiring to redeem the world for Mahomet, but
we are quite as sincerely glad that sturdy Charles Martel smashed
them back from Europe. Their very sincerity made them the more
dangerous. In estimating any one's sincerity, it is indispensable
to inquire with what other qualities is this sincerity
linked,--to what nouns of activity is it a qualifying adjective?
Honesty, truthfulness and sincerity are esteemed because there is
in our social structure the great need that men shall trust one
another. The cynic and the worldly wise, and also the experiences
of life, teach "never trust, always be cautious, never confide in
letter or speech," curb the trusting urge in our nature. The
betrayal of trust is the one sin; all other crimes from murder
down may find an excuse in passion or weakness, but when the
trusting are deceived or injured, the cement substance of our
social structure is dissolved and the fabric of our lives
threatened. To trust is to hand over one's destiny to another and
is a manifestation of the mutual dependence of man. It is in part
a judgment of character, it is in part an original trait, is an
absence of that form of fear called suspicion and on its positive
side is a form of courage.
Since it is in part a judgment of character in the most of us, it
tends to grow less prominent as we grow older. The young child is
either very trusting or entirely suspicious, and when his
suspicions are overcome by acquaintance and simple bribes, he
yields his fortunes to any one. (It is a pleasant fiction that
children and dogs know whom to trust, by an intuition.) But as
life proceeds, the most of us find that our judgment of character
is poor, and we hesitate to pin anything momentous on it. Only
where passion blinds us, as in sex love, or when our self-love
and lust for quick gain[1] or hate has been aroused do we lose
the caution that is the antithesis of trust. The expert in human
relations is he who can overcome distrust; the genius in human
relations is he who inspires trust.
For the psychopathologist an enormous interest centers in a group
of people whom we may call paranoic. In his mildest form the
paranoic is that very common "misunderstood" person who distrusts
the attitude and actions of his neighbors, who believes himself
to be injured purposely by every unintentional slight, or rather
who finds insult and injury where others see only forgetfulness
or inattention. Of an inordinate and growing ego, the paranoic of
a pathological trend develops the idea or delusion of
persecution. From the feeling that everything and every one is
against him, he builds up, when some major purpose becomes
balked, a specific belief that so and so or this or "that group
is after me." "They are trying to injure or kill me" because they
are jealous or have some antagonistic purpose. Here we find the
half-baked inventor, whose "inventions" have been turned down for
the very good reason that they are of no value, and who concludes
[1] All the great swindlers show how the lust for gain plus the
wiles of the swindler overcome the caution and suspicion of the
"hard-headed," The Ponzi case is the latest contribution to the
subject.
that some big corporations are in league with the Patent Office
to prevent him from competing with them; here we have the
"would-be" artist or singer or writer whose efforts are not
appreciated, largely because they are foolish, but who believes
that the really successful (and he often names them) hate and
fear him, or that the Catholics are after him, or perhaps the
Jews or the Masons.
In its extreme form the paranoic is rare just as is the extremely
trusting person of saintly type. But in minor form every group
and every institution has its paranoic, hostile, suspicious,
"touchy," quick to believe something is being put over on him and
quick to attribute his failure to others. In that last is a
cardinal point in the compass of character. Some attribute their
failure to others, and some in their self-analysis find the root
of their difficulties and failures in themselves.
Under the feeling of injustice a paranoid trend is easily aroused
in all of us, and we may misinterpret the whole world when
laboring under that feeling, just as we may, if we are correct,
see the social organization very clearly as a result. Therein is
the danger of any injustice and seeming injustice, As a result
condemnation is extreme, wrongly directed and with little
constructive value. We become paranoid, see wrong where there is
none and enemies in those who are friendly.
The over-trusting, over-confidential are the virtuous in excess,
and their damage is usually localized to themselves or their
families. They tell their secrets to any one who politely
expresses an interest, they will hand over their fortunes to the
flattering stranger, to the smooth-tongued. Sometimes they are
merely unworldly, absorbed in unworldly projects, but more often
they are merely trusting fools.
Man the weak, struggling in a world whose forces are pitiless,
whose fairest face hides grim disaster, has sought to find some
one, some force, he might unfailingly trust. He raises his hands
to heaven; he cries, "There is One I can trust. Though He smite
me I shall have faith."