THE FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN MIND
1.
The ideal of most social thinkers has been that of uniformity, absence
of parties and swallowing of groups in a common loyalty.
Then none was for a party;
Then all were for the state;
Then the great man helped the poor,
And the poor man loved the great;
Then lands were fairly portioned;
Then spoils were fairly sold;
The Romans were like brothers
In the brave days of old.[122]
Uniformity and unity within, hostility and spoils from without—this is
the old ideal of the happy society, founded on the patriotism of the
little Greek cities in their petty isolation.
But now this point of view of the state, appropriate in its origin, is
applied uncritically to a great modern nation, with a hundred cities
larger than any one of ancient Greece, with its inhabitants drawn from
the ends of the earth—such a nation shall also present a uniformity of
blood, speech and loyalty. What is the method by which such an end can
be achieved? What is the theory by which such an end can be justified?
Dr. I. Berkson in his “Theories of Americanization” has developed
in detail four types of theory for the relation of the sub-groups,
especially the immigrant sub-groups, to the American nation. Of these
the first two imply uniformity, “Americanization” by imposing the
social and cultural standards of the Anglo-Saxon group on the newer
arrivals; the “Melting-Pot” by which uniformity is to be achieved
through a general admixture and intermingling, racial or social.
The viewpoint of Americanization has been mentioned previously in
this study—the view that the United States ought to be a homogeneous
people, and that the proper standard of homogeneity is that of
the white, Protestant, gentile group, of Anglo-Saxon origin. The newer
arrivals are expected to forget their native languages and habits,
to throw off their former loyalties, to copy the standards of life
which they see already established in this country. The new loyalty is
conceived as antagonistic to the old; the demands of democracy that
the new citizen also shall express himself are quite disregarded. The
rapidity of the process of intermarriage among many immigrant groups,
and the still greater speed of social adaptation and assimilation are
evidences that this theory has something in its favor. The awakening
group loyalties which its repressive methods arouse show definitely
that it has not the final word. As Lewis S. Gannet put it:
[123]We are forcing the Jew to choose between assimilation with
complete loss of group identity, and the establishment of entirely
independent cultural institutions—and we are shoving him more and
more toward the latter choice.... It is not so much anti-Semitism,
Christian theology, or Jewish traits that stand in the way as the smug
Anglo-Saxon tradition of exclusiveness and self-sufficiency.
A variation of this, which posits uniformity, but not the uniformity of
one group imposed on all the rest, is the Melting-Pot theory. The term
was fathered by Israel Zangwill, who made the young Jewish immigrant
exclaim:
[124]America is God’s Crucible, the great Melting Pot where all the
races of Europe are melting and reforming!—Here you stand, good folks,
think I, when I see you at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty
groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood
hatreds and rivalries. But you won’t be long like that, brothers, for
these are the fires of God you come to—these are the fires of God. A
fig for your feuds and your vendettas! German and Frenchman, Irishman
and English, Jews and Russians, into the Crucible with you all! God is
making the American!
Something of the same view seems to be voiced by John J. Smertenko:
[125]Unless it be the Indian, there is no American type; the future
American will be the result of a synthesis of all the people that
have poured their life-blood into the veins of our nation. Hence it
is impossible for the Jew—and the same principles apply to Irishman,
German, Italian, and the others—to become a hundred per cent.
American until America is at least three per cent. Jewish.
The Melting Pot theory marks an advance over the Americanization theory
in its treatment of the immigrant, not in its conception of the United
States. Uniformity, physical or social or both, is taken as the sine
qua non of group unity, like-mindedness as its minimum. But many ethnic
groups, religious groups and others, wish to maintain their identity in
their new home. Democracy would allow them to do so. The group theory
of American life—which I have already elaborated historically and in
the present, would not merely allow this, but take it as the only
normal way in which an over-group of a hundred million people can ever
hope to attain the unity of a group mind.
2.
The first form of such a theory is called by Dr. Berkson the
“Federation of Nationalities.” It is modelled after the Federal
government, which is a union of self-governing states. In the same
way, as geographical units grow steadily less important and functional
units more important in our national life, the same conception of
federation was applied to these. The Soviet government has taken
national control as a function of a federation of economic interests;
the federation of nationalities view takes it as a federation of
ethnic and religious groups. Our greater cities are now beginning to
establish this sort of an appearance. They have Italian quarters,
Jewish quarters, Negro quarters, even an American quarter, restricted
to families whose acceptability can be approved and vouched for. The
advocate of this theory holds that races are unchangeable—“a man
cannot change his grandfather,” they say—the best that they can do is
to live in amity within the same general national boundaries. Now, it
is true that groupings based on heredity and on interest are growing
increasingly important, as compared with the geographical groupings
which once meant so much. Only in the old families, whose associations
with a particular state have persisted for generations, is much state
sentiment left among us. On the other hand, the Catholic, the Bohemian,
the German, the Jew—every national and religious group has
enduring loyalties. And the new economic groupings, labor, capital, the
commercial class, the trade association, are developing their own group
minds more rapidly than we can easily note.
The danger of this theory, however, is as obvious as its partial
justification. It would make for the stability of what is actually
fluid. All groups take more than they give when they enter a great
mass of other groups, such as the United States. Immigrant communities
in the United States are changing constantly, due to imitation—the
Federation theory would establish them in the fixity of conflict and
opposition. It would result, on the one hand, in permanent immigrant
groups, with little participation in the general American group mind;
on the other, in permanent groups of protest, such as the Ku Klux Klan.
Carried to its logical extreme, it would give us the situation of the
Levant, where a half dozen different races and religions, represented
in the same village, preserve their isolation and their enmity for a
thousand years.
3.
Both the old Americans, who insist on American unity, and the newer
immigrants, who see and love their own group identity, have taken hold
of real elements in the total situation, but neither has envisaged the
social process as a whole. It is true that ethnic and religious groups
are distinct in America, both racially and socially; on the whole,
the Jew refuses to intermarry with the gentile, the white with the
Negro, a prohibition that in the Southern states is ♦reinforced by law.
Similarly, the Irishman preserves his loyalty and his interest in the
struggle for Irish liberty; the Italian and Greek reservists return to
their native lands when called for military duty; the Jew raises huge
sums for the relief of his fellow-Jews across the seas. But at the same
time, all these groups were ready to unite in a common purpose when the
United States was at war. Every immigrant group, as every native group,
daily sacrifices its own purpose in a crucial problem for the greater
welfare of the United States. The double process, which we have traced
in the formulation of the Constitution of the United States and in
subsequent history, is constantly going on—the entrance of new groups
into the United States, and their incorporation into the American
group. This is what Dr. Berkson calls the “community” theory, Professor
Miller, “proportional loyalty,” and many other thinkers by other terms,
a point of view toward which social theory and political thought is
constantly tending; one which we may call, in the terms employed in
this study, the integration of sub-groups into the American group mind
by the sacrifice of their own purpose for that of the United States as
a whole.
♦ “reenforced” replaced with “reinforced”
This theory recognizes the necessary and proper existence of the
sub-groups, whether family, religious, racial or ethnic units. Human
beings live naturally in comparatively small units, which can be easily
recognized and whose loyalty is habitual (some would even claim,
instinctive). These groups then join with others into larger units
of synthesis, by accepting the common purpose of the whole in place
of the conflicting purposes of each. Just as the individual becomes
a loyal member of a family, the family of a Protestant church or a
Jewish people, so that church or ethnic unit becomes, in turn, a unit
in the larger whole of the American people. Group intolerance is thus
sacrificed to America in increasing proportion and scope; while group
individuality preserves the democratic ideal by which a man is an end
in himself. The personal satisfactions and welfare of the immigrants
themselves cannot be advanced by compelling them to give up everything
they hold dear—instead, the attempt will prove subversive of the
hoped-for unity by the usual result of group resistance. But all these
values can be retained in a higher synthesis, a gradation of loyalties,
an integration of minds in a true group mind.
The traditional Hebrew phrases for the Jewish people are {Am Israel},
the People of Israel, and {Keneseth Israel}, the Congregation of
Israel—grasping thus both the racial and spiritual elements in one
conception. To quote Berkson:
[126]This conception which identifies the Jewish people with its
cultural and spiritual aspirations comes very close to the view that
nationality is essentially a psychological force. [127]The
“Community” theory would make the history of the ethnic group,
its aesthetic, cultural and religious inheritance, its national
self-consciousness the basic factor. [128]The “Community” theory
endeavors to meet all the justifiable considerations presented in each
of the other proposals. It seeks especially to avoid such a scheme
of adjustment as would tend to force the individual to accept one
solution as against another. It leaves all the forces working; they
are to decide what the future is to be.
Professor Dewey put the matter similarly:
[129]The way to deal with hyphenism is to welcome it, but to welcome
it with the sense of extracting from each people its special good, so
that it shall surrender into a common fund of wisdom and experience
what it especially has to contribute. All of these surrenders and
contributions taken together create the national spirit of America.
The dangerous thing is for each factor to isolate itself, to try to
live off its past, and then to attempt to impose itself upon other
elements, or at least, to keep itself intact and thus refuse to accept
what other cultures have to offer, so as thereby to be transmuted into
authentic Americanism.
Dr. Drachsler represents the same point of view:
[130]To hope for a rich, composite civilization in America through
biological fusion merely is to chase a will-o’-the-wisp. Nothing
short of conscious social control of the transmission of the
cultural heritage will achieve the result. [131]The function of
the cultural groups would be to foster through voluntary cultural
community organization their cultural uniqueness, while the function
of the State would embrace the harmonization of these cultural
differences, the unification of distinctive contributions into a rich
and variegated whole. [132]America with her unique experience of
multiform contacts of races and peoples is in a position to invest
the concept of democracy with a broader and richer meaning than any
nation has done thus far. She can, if she will, develop the principle
of tolerance as no people has yet dared to do. She can, if she will,
encourage the search for the unique and the distinctive in social
life, side by side with a strong emphasis on the basic human interests.
But, many will say, does this theory erect conflicting loyalties? Can
they be reconciled? The answer to this is in terms of proportional
loyalties. I quote Professor Miller’s summary:
[133]The real problem of society is the living together of individuals
and groups in such a way that both the individual and the group can
attain the highest degree of self-realization. [134]One of the
greatest obstacles to truth and progress is the preaching of one
hundred per cent. Americanism.... Reality demands that we begin to
advocate ten to twenty-five per cent. patriotism. This proportion
will account for the peculiarly provincial values that our particular
fatherland has contributed to our development.... The seventy-five to
ninety per cent. of loyalty that is left belongs to values in our
lives that are international rather than national.
Among these international values he finds the religious, economic and
cultural ones, all of which transcend the nation, either by being wider
or narrower, belonging to a sub-group or to humanity.
4.
This integration of groups need not stop at the nation as at present
constituted, as is hinted in the last citation. The nation is itself
an integration of groups, and can enter into other integrations, which
include it or which cross it with different lines of interest and of
grouping. In the words of U. G. Weatherly:
[135]Loyalty to a particular unit with a well defined function in
no way collides with allegiance to other bodies with quite other
outlooks.... Men may still remain good national patriots while loyally
accepting the controls exercised by world standards in science, art or
music. [136]Both race and nation must be preserved because they have
certain permanent and necessary functions, and because they are the
natural centers of that loyalty which can never be swallowed up in
world-loyalty, since human nature cannot live wholly in universals....
Between these two sets of loyalties there is a clear distinction; the
one is local and particularistic, the other is human. A well-rounded
social organization, whether within the single group or between
groups, will give practical scope to each.... In a practical way men
must recognize that since they have multiple interests, they may have
multiple allegiances.
To return to Miller for another phrase:
[137]The nation is a growth from innumerable simpler social forms,
and the growth to internationalism is relatively little more complex
than the growth of nationalism. [138]The old patriotism means
stultification; an adaptation of loyalty to meet actual present
conditions means enlargement of character and the possibility of a new
world.
There is no beginning and no end to the growth and the organization
of the mind. Beginning with the individual and the family, we may
analyze the elements which enter into these elementary mental units,
or we may observe the mounting synthesis to the city, state and
nation; or, following other lines of interest and of affiliation, to
the movements of world culture, religion and economic organization,
in their world-wide bearing. The nation is formed by a synthesis of
its sub-groups; and the nation, in turn, enters into a wider synthesis
to form the nascent but still growing conception of mankind. The mind
of the many groups of Americans yield up their purposes, when called
upon, for the greater unity—greater not only in size, but in richness,
variety and tradition—that constitutes the mind of America. The future
will mark the growing unity in diversity of the American group mind;
the mounting beauty of its many-colored canvas, the increasing harmony
of its many-throated symphony. At the same time, America will become
more and more a part of a still greater synthesis, the group mind
that will transcend the selfish purpose of the nation in such common
purposes as the struggle against the adverse forces of nature; the
organization of men for welfare and for culture; the prevention of that
ancient group intolerance, which means the destruction of many small
groups and the standardization and impoverishment of many great ones.
The fulfillment of the prophet’s vision will be at hand when groups of
men will not strive to destroy each other but to fulfill each other,
when the sub-group will not undermine but serve the greater unity, when
the ultimate vision of every struggling group of men, be it small or
great, will be to serve the purpose of the whole, to enter into the
mind of humanity, the ideal of God.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Franz Boaz, The Mind of Primitive Man.
Paul Barth, Die Philosphie der Geschichte als Soziologie.
I. Berkson, Theories of Americanization.
James Mark Baldwin, Social and Ethical Interpretations.
Sir Martin Conway, The Crowd in Peace and War.
Sanford H. Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America.
Susan L. Davis, Authentic History of the Ku Klux Klan.
William Durant, Philosophy and the Social Problem.
Julius Drachsler, Democracy and Assimilation.
John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy.
William Ray Dennes, Method and Presuppositions of Group Psychology.
Charles A. Ellwood, Sociology in Its Psychological Aspects.
M. Fishberg, The Jews, a Study in Race and Environment.
C. R. Fish, Development of American Nationality.
Elisha M. Friedman, Survival or Extinction.
Jean Finot, Race Prejudice.
Morris Ginsberg, The Psychology of Society.
Gumplowitz, Der Rassenkampf.
E. B. Greene, Foundations of American Nationality.
Paul Goodman, The Synagog and the Church.
Burton J. Hendrick, The Jews in America.
The International Jew, 4 vol.
Joseph Jacobs, Contributions of the Jew to Civilization.
Aurel Kolnai, Psychoanalysis and Sociology.
B. Lazare, Anti-Semitism.
Walter Lippman, Public Opinion.
Le Bon, Le Foule.
E. C. Lindeman, Social Discovery.
John M. Mecklin, The Ku Klux Klan.
Everett D. Martin, The Behavior of Crowds.
Herbert A. Miller, Races, Nations and Classes.
William MacDougall, Introduction to Social Psychology.
William MacDougall, The Group Mind.
Charles Platt, Psychology of Social Life.
The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.
Max Raisin, History of the Jews in Modern Times.
Melvin G. Rigg, 2d, Theories of the Obligation of Citizen to State.
J. H. Robinson, The Mind in the Making.
Edward A. Ross, Social Control.
Josiah Royce, Philosophy of Loyalty.
The Reference Shelf: Ku Klux Klan.
The Reference Shelf: Restriction of Immigration.
John Spargo, The Jew and American Ideals.
Nathaniel S. Shailer, The Neighbor.
Maurice Samuel, You Gentiles.
Oscar Straus, The American Spirit.
Philip Schaff, Church and State in the United States.
Edgar A. Singer, Jr., Mind as Behavior.
Edgar A. Singer, Jr., Modern Thinkers and Present Problems.
Gabriel Tarde, Les lois de l’imitation.
W. Trotter, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War.
Frank Tannenbaum, Darker Phases of the South.
J. M. Williams, Principles of Social Psychology.
Peter Wiernick, History of the Jews in America.
Lucien Wolf, The Myth of the Jewish Menace in World Affairs.
Israel Zangwill, The Voice of Jerusalem.
American Journal of Sociology, May 1924.
Allport: Group Fallacy in Relation to Social Science.
Kantor: Institutional Foundation of a Scientific Social Psychology.
American Journal of Sociology, Jan. 1925.
Bohn: The Ku Klux Klan Interpreted.
American Journal of Sociology, Jan. 1911.
George E. Vincent: The Rivalry of Groups.
B’nai B’rith Magazine, Oct., Nov. 1924.
J. Speransky: My Adventures with Radicals.
B’nai B’rith Magazine, 1922 and ’23.
A series on the Ku Klux Klan, with statements by its Grand Wizard.
Hearst’s International Magazine, 1922 and ’23.
A series on anti-Semitism; another on the Ku Klux Klan.
Jewish Social Service Quarterly, Nov. 1924.
Drachsler: Jewish Communal Life in the United States.
The Menorah Journal, Nov. 1924.
Erwin Edman: Race and Culture. Frequent articles on similar topics.
The Nation, 1923 and ’24.
A series of 10 articles on anti-Semitism.
Publications of the American Sociological Society, Vol XVIII.
U. G. Weatherly: Racial Pessimism.
Harry F. Ward: Repression of Civil Liberties.
John A. Ryan: Intolerance: Causes and Lessons.
Footnotes.
[1] American Jewish Yearbook, volume 24, page 343.
[2] Yearbook, Vol. 22, pages 410–11.
[3] Social Discovery, p. 21.
[4] Sociology in its Psychological Aspects, p. 13.
[5] ibid., p. 94.
[6] Hobhouse: Morals in Evolution, p. 339.
[7] The Philosophical Review, 1912, vol. 21, p. 81.
[8] See Dennes: Method and Presuppositions of Group Psychology,
especially Chap. IX.
[9] Page 115.
[10] Baldwin: Social and Ethical Interpretations, p. 248.
[11] Boaz: Mind of Primitive Man, p. 207.
[12] Matthew, 12:30.
[13] Allport: American Journal of Sociology, May 1924, p. 691.
[14] Bogardus: American Journal of Sociology, May 1924, p. 703.
[15] Lindeman: Social Discovery, p. 44.
[16] Lindeman: Social Discovery, p. 120.
[17] Davis: Psychological Interpretations of Society, p. 9.
[18] Cited in Elwood, p. 330.
[19] Ellwood, p. 330.
[20] Baldwin, p. 571.
[21] Lindeman, p. 136.
[22] Dennes: Method and Presuppositions of Group Psychology, p. 145.
[23] MacDougall: Group Mind, p. 12.
[24] Lindeman, p. 115.
[25] Singer, p. 10.
[26] Lindeman, p. 170.
[27] MacDougall: Group Mind, p. 78.
[28] MacDougall: Group Mind, p. 158.
[29] Dennes: Method and Presuppositions of Group Psychology, p. 120.
[30]Barker: Political Thought in England from Herbert Spencer to the
Present Day.
[31] Singer: Mind as Behavior, chapter on The Man Without a Fellow.
[32] Baldwin: Social and Ethical Interpretations, p. 22.
[33] p. 30.
[34] Hart: The Survey, March 15, 1924.
[35] Platt: The Psychology of Social Life, p. 188.
[36] Baldwin, p. 462.
[37] Baldwin, p. 96.
[38] Singer: Modern Thinkers and Present Problems, p. 289.
[39] Miller: ♦Races, Nations and Classes, p. 14.
♦ “Raches” replaced with “Races”
[40] Baldwin, p. 61.
[41] Sumner: Folkways, p. 12.
[42] Ellwood, p. 159.
[43] Vincent: American Journal of Sociology, Jan. 1912, p. 471.
[44] ibid., p. 483.
[45] Gumplowitz, p. 176.
[46] Gumplowitz, p. 161.
[47] Friedman, p. 148.
[48] Miller: Races, Nations and Classes, p. 11.
[49] Miller, p. 135.
[50] Miller, p. 35–6.
[51]Shaw: “Saint Joan,” p. lvii.
[52] Shaw, p. lxi.
[53] Baldwin, p. 191, footnote.
[54] Vincent: American Journal of Sociology, p. 479.
[55] Lippman, p. 115.
[56] p. 15.
[57] p. 31.
[58] p. 99.
[59] Chapter 20.
[60] Greene: Foundations of American Nationality, p. 579.
[61] Fish: The Development of American Nationality, p. 2–15.
[62] Fish, p. 10.
[63] Greene, pp. 590–598.
[64] Cobb: Rise of Religious Liberty in America, p. 70.
[65] Mecklin: The Ku Klux Klan, p. 183.
[66] Susan L. Davis: Authentic History of the Ku Klux Klan.
[67] Ross: Overland Monthly, Feb. 1922.
[68] Miller: Races, Nations, and Classes, p. 44.
[69] Drachsler: Democracy and Assimilation, p. 29.
[70] A Jewish Chaplain in France, p. 214.
[71] Martin: The Behavior of Crowds.
[72] Mecklin: The Ku Klux Klan, p. 20.
[73] The Ku Klux Klan, p. 233.
[74] idem. p. 103.
[75] p. 108.
[76] p. 122.
[77] Ryan: Art., Intolerance, in Pub. Amer. Sociological Society, Vol.
XVIII.
[78] Tannenbaum: Darker Phases of the South, p. 20.
[79] p. 15.
[80] p. 33.
[81] Bohn: American Journal of Sociology, Jan. 1925, pp. 385–407.
[82] p. 168.
[83] p. 110.
[84] Johnson: The Nation’s Business, July 1923, pp. 26–8.
[85] Ryan, p. 124.
[86] Ward: Proceedings of the American Sociological Society, Vol. XVIII.
[87] Ward, p. 145.
[88] The Nation, March 21, 1923.
[89] The Nation, February 28, 1923.
[90] Samuel: You Gentiles, p. 31.
[91] p. 175.
[92] Menorah Journal, November 1924, p. 425.
[93] The International Jew, p. 88.
[94] Vol. 2, p. 249.
[95] Vol. 4, pp. 50–1.
[96] Finot: Race Prejudice, p. 88.
[97] p. 221.
[98] p. 310.
[99] p. 317.
[100] Spargo: The Jew and American Ideals.
[101] The Nation, February 20, 1924.
[102] Friedman: Survival or Extinction, p. 110.
[103] Shailer: The Neighbor.
[104] Mecklin: The Ku Klux Klan, p. 125.
[105] Jewish Social Service Quarterly, Nov. pp. 19–21.
[106] Friedman: Survival or Extinction, p. 112.
[107] p. 121.
[108] p. 131.
[109] p. 134.
[110] The Nation, Feb. 20, 1924.
[111] Miller: Races, Nations and Classes, Chapter II, p. 36.
[112] p. 182.
[113] p. 97.
[114] p. 95.
[115] Beaulieu: Israel among the Nations.
[116] Democracy and Assimilation, Chapter IV.
[117] Friedman: Survival or Extinction, p. 140.
[118] p. 106.
[119] p. 166.
[120] p. 190.
[121] See Gamoran: Changing Conceptions in Jewish Education.
[122] Macaulay: Lays of Ancient Rome.
[123] The Nation, March 21, 1923.
[124] Zangwill: The Melting Pot, Act I.
[125] The Nation, April 11, 1923.
[126] Berkson: Theories of Americanization, p. 101.
[127] p. 98.
[128] p. 117.
[129] Dewey: Addresses and Proceedings of the Nat. Ed. Assn. Vol. LIV,
p. 185.
[130] Drachsler: Democracy and Assimilation, p. 236.
[131] p. 188.
[132] p. 222.
[133] Miller: Races, Nations and Classes, p. 169.
[134] p. 186.
[135] Racial Pessimism, in Pub. Amer. Sociol. Soc. Vol. XVIII, p. 13.
[136] p. 14.
[137] Miller, p. 181.
[138] p. 191.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
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