MODERN COMMUNICATION: INDIVIDUALITY
THE QUESTION—WHY COMMUNICATION SHOULD FOSTER INDIVIDUALITY—THE
CONTRARY OR DEAD-LEVEL THEORY—RECONCILIATION OF THESE VIEWS—THE
OUTLOOK AS REGARDS INDIVIDUALITY.
It is a question of utmost interest whether these changes do or do
not contribute to the independence and productivity of the individual
mind. Do they foster a self-reliant personality, capable at need of
pursuing high and rare aims, or have they rather a levelling tendency,
repressive of what is original and characteristic? There are in fact
opposite opinions regarding this matter, in support of either of which
numerous expressions by writers of some weight might be collected.
From one point of view it would appear that the new communication ought
to encourage individuality of all kinds; it makes it easier to get away
from a given environment and to find support in one more congenial.
The world has grown more various and at the same time more accessible,
so that one having a natural bent should be the more able to find
influences to nourish it. If he has a turn, say, for entomology, he
can readily, through journals, correspondence and meetings, get in
touch with a group of men similarly inclined, and with a congenial
tradition. And so with any sect of religion, or politics, or art,
or what not; if there are in the civilized world a few like-minded
people it is comparatively easy for them to get together in spirit and
encourage one another in their peculiarity.
It is a simple and recognized principle of development that an enlarged
life in the organism commonly involves greater differentiation in its
parts. That the social enlargement of recent times has in general
this character seems plain, and has been set forth in much detail
by some writers, notably by Herbert Spencer. Many, indeed, find the
characteristic evil of the new era in an extreme individuality, a
somewhat anarchic differentiation and working at cross purposes.
“Probably there was never any time,” says Professor Mackenzie, “in
which men tended to be so unintelligible to each other as they are now,
on account of the diversity of the objects with which they are engaged,
and of the points of view at which they stand.”[34]
On the other hand we have what we may call the dead-level theory, of
which De Tocqueville, in his Democracy in America, was apparently
the chief author. Modern conditions, according to this, break down
all limits to the spread of ideas and customs. Great populations
are brought into one mental whole, through which movements of
thought run by a contagion like that of the mob; and instead of
the individuality which was fostered by former obstacles, we have
a universal assimilation. Each locality, it is pointed out, had
formerly its peculiar accent and mode of dress; while now dialects
are disappearing, and almost the same fashions prevail throughout
the civilized world. This uniformity in externals is held to be only
the outward and visible sign of a corresponding levelling of ideas.
People, it is said, have a passion to be alike, which modern appliances
enable them to gratify. Already in the eighteenth century Dr. Johnson
complained that “commerce has left the people no singularities,”
and in our day many hold with John Burroughs that, “Constant
intercommunication, the friction of travel, of streets, of books, of
newspapers, make us all alike; we are, as it were, all pebbles upon the
same shore, washed by the same waves.”[35]
The key to this matter, in my judgment, is to perceive that there
are two kinds of individuality, one of isolation and one of choice,
and that modern conditions foster the latter while they efface the
former. They tend to make life rational and free instead of local and
accidental. They enlarge indefinitely the competition of ideas, and
whatever has owed its persistence merely to lack of comparison is
likely to go, while that which is really congenial to the choosing
mind will be all the more cherished and increased. Human nature
is enfranchised, and works on a larger scale as regards both its
conformities and its non-conformities.
Something of this may be seen in the contrast between town and country,
the latter having more of the individuality of isolation, the former
of choice. “The rural environment,” says Mr. R. L. Hartt, speaking of
country villages in New England, “is psychically extravagant. It tends
to extremes. A man carries himself out to his logical conclusions;
he becomes a concentrated essence of himself.”[36] I travelled some
years ago among the mountains of North Carolina, at that time wholly
unreached by modern industry and communication, and noticed that not
only was the dialect of the region as a whole distinct from that of
neighboring parts of the country, but that even adjoining valleys often
showed marked differences. Evidently this sort of local individuality,
characteristic of an illiterate people living on their own corn, pork
and neighborhood traditions, can hardly survive the new communication.
It must be said, however, that rural life has other conditions that
foster individuality in a more wholesome way than mere isolation,
and are a real advantage in the growth of character. Among these are
control over the immediate environment, the habit of face-to-face
struggle with nature, and comparative security of economic position.
All these contribute to the self-reliance upon which the farming people
justly pride themselves.
In the city we find an individuality less picturesque but perhaps more
functional. There is more facility for the formation of specialized
groups, and so for the fostering of special capacities. Notwithstanding
the din of communication and trade, the cities are, for this reason,
the chief seats of productive originality in art, science and letters.
The difference is analogous to that between the development of natural
species on islands or other isolated areas, and on a wide and
traversable continent. The former produces many quaint species, like
the kangaroos, which disappear when brought into contact with more
capable types; but the continent by no means brings about uniformity.
It engenders, rather, a complex organism of related species and
varieties, each of which is comparatively perfect in its special
way; and has become so through the very fact of a wider struggle for
existence.
So, easy communication of ideas favors differentiation of a rational
and functional sort, as distinguished from the random variations
fostered by isolation. And it must be remembered that any sort is
rational and functional that really commends itself to the human
spirit. Even revolt from an ascendant type is easier now than formerly,
because the rebel can fortify himself with the triumphant records of
the non-conformers of the past.
It is, then, probable that local peculiarity of speech and manner, and
other curious and involuntary sorts of individuality, will diminish.
And certainly a great deal is thus lost in the way of local color
and atmosphere, of the racy flavor of isolated personalities and
unconscious picturesqueness of social types. The diversities of dress,
language and culture, which were developed in Europe during the Middle
Ages, when each little barony was the channel of peculiar traditions,
can hardly reappear. Nor can we expect, in modern cities, the sort
of architectural individuality we find in those of Italy, built when
each village was a distinct political and social unit. Heine, speaking
of Scott, long ago referred to “the great pain caused by the loss of
national characteristics in consequence of the spread of the newer
culture—a pain which now quivers in the heart of all peoples.”
But the more vital individuality, the cultivation by special groups
of peculiar phases of knowledge, art or conduct, of anything under
the heavens in fact that a few people may agree to pursue, will
apparently be increased. Since uniformity is cheap and convenient,
we may expect it in all matters wherein men do not specially care to
assert themselves. We have it in dress and domestic architecture,
for instance, just so far as we are willing to take these things
ready-made; but when we begin to put ourselves into them we produce
something distinctive.
Even languages and national characteristics, if the people really
care about them, can be, and in fact are, preserved in spite of
political absorption and the assimilating power of communication.
There is nothing more notable in recent history than the persistence
of nationality, even when, as in Poland, it has lost its political
expression; and, as to languages, it is said that many, such as
Roumanian, Bulgarian, Servian, Finnish, Norsk and Flemish, have revived
and come into literary and popular use during the nineteenth century.
Mr. Lecky, in his “Democracy and Liberty”[37] declared that “there has
been in many forms a marked tendency to accentuate distinct national
and local types.”
To assume that a free concourse of ideas will produce uniformity is to
beg the whole question. If it be true that men have a natural diversity
of gifts, free intercourse should favor its development, especially
when we consider that strong instinct which causes man to take pleasure
in distinguishing himself, and to abhor to be lost in the crowd.
And, as regards the actual tendency of modern life, only an obstinate
_a priori_ reasoner will maintain with any confidence the decline of
individuality. Those who charge that we possess it in extravagant
excess have at least an equal show of reason.
Nor, from the standpoint of sentiment, does the modern expansion
of feeling and larger sense of unity tend necessarily to a loss of
individuality. There is no prospect that self-feeling and ambition will
be “lost in love’s great unity.”[38] On the contrary these sentiments
are fostered by freedom, and are rather guided than repressed by
sympathy.
In a truly organic life the individual is self-conscious and devoted to
his own work, but feels himself and that work as part of a large and
joyous whole. He is self-assertive, just because he is conscious of
being a thread in the great web of events, of serving effectually as a
member of a family, a state, of humanity, and of whatever greater whole
his faith may picture. If we have not yet an organic society in this
sense, we have at least the mechanical conditions that must underly it.
FOOTNOTES:
[34] Introduction to Social Philosophy, 110.
[35] Nature’s Way, Harper’s Magazine, July, 1904.
[36] A New England Hill Town. The Atlantic Monthly, April, 1899.
[37] I, 501.
[38] The concluding line of E. W. Sill’s poem, Dare You?