professional ideals? A century hence young people may have as strong a bent for mental hygiene or disciplinary moral exercises as now they have for physical culture. Scientific gains and new thought are bound to leave their mark upon social patterns. GENESIS OF STANDARDS CHAP. XLVII Reflect tions of Whence comes the standard, or the change in standard? Some- Standards times from experience. Newcomers to the cattle country become the Shapwilling to hang horse thieves after experiencing the helplessness ing Condiof being afoot in vast spaces. Hospitality becomes a sacred duty Existence in a sparsely settled region, because grateful to both hosts and guests. Cheap sugar and the spread of machine-operation favor the growth of temperance sentiment. In accounting for the modern standard of decency Sumner observes that "the cheapening and popularization of luxury have made houses larger, plumbing cheaper, and all the apparatus of careful living more accessible to all classes. The consequence is that all the operations and necessities of life can be carried on with greater privacy and more ostentation of conventional order and decorum." "Therefore the standards and codes of all classes have risen and the care about dressing, bathing and private functions . . . has been intensified." Standards per Class General ance Accept Often social standards originate with an upper class. In trop- The ical South America only the gente decente take care to safeguard of the Upthe chastity of their daughters. As the masses rise economically May Find and respond to church and school and good reading matter, they will imitate the gente decente as regards the association of young people. In respect to bathing, outdoor sports, frankness of speech and aversion to boasting the English aristocracy have been pace-setters for English and Americans. Bushido, the moral code of Japan, originated with the samurai. The nobility of Russia were the channel by which Western standards got among the Russian people. 6 The Standards of a Mid dle or Lower Sometimes standards rise when leadership departs from an aristocracy. Sumner remarks: "Steam and machinery with the increase of capital and of power over nature which they have produced, have given social power to the lower middle class, as the representatives of the masses. This has brought into control Dominate the mores of those classes, which were simple, unluxurious, phi Class may Society CHAP. XLVII Many Standards are Not Conducive listine and comparatively pure, because these classes were forced to be frugal, domestic, careful of their children, self-denying and comparatively virtuous on account of their limited means." The same author insists that Christianity first took root in the lowest free classes of the Roman Empire. It got its mores from them and in later times gave those mores authority and extension. Again, standards may be traced back to outstanding individuals or élites-Pythagoras, Zoroaster, Confucius, Jesus, Mahomet, Francis of Assisi, the Prophets of Israel, the Pharisees, the Stoics, the Christian Fathers, the Reformers, the Puritans, the Quakers, the Methodists, the Liberals, the Abolitionists, the Humanitarians, the Socialists, the Eugenists. No doubt there has been a tendency to exaggerate their rôle, for it is easier to attribute revolutions in moral opinion to the initiative of conspicuous individuals or groups than to connect them with those obscure changes in the life of the people which actually caused them. THE PURPOSE OF STANDARDS The current standards are invariably held up as eternal norms of welfare. The truth is, however, that some of them are positively harmful as, e.g., the taboos in India on the killing of venomous snakes and on the eating of food prepared by a man of a lower caste. So, too, the Indian customs regarding child marriage and widows are noxious rather than benign. Other standards which to Welfare feign to promote the interest of all serve merely the interest of a dominant element, e.g., the standard of flawless chastity, which men impose on women but by no means submit to themselves. Often public opinion has stood behind customs of no utility whatever, which had their origin in some long-since-exploded belief regarding ghosts, goblins, or the evil eye. Nevertheless, after these deductions have been made, there remains a body of standards which are the fruit of collective experience and which are reasonable at the time of their adoption. But not a few of these will become nuisances once they have been handed on with all the authority of tradition, so that they are able to outlive the conditions to which they were suited. CRITICISM OF STANDARDS CHAP. XLVII Criticism Accumu late and Clog the Time should not consecrate error. Without the free play of Without judgment and unfettered criticism standards will accumulate and Standards choke the channel of life. New needed taboos will be added to old useless taboos until one is penned in a thorn hedge of Don'ts, Life like the orthodox Jew, who must obey 613 commandments. Current When, however, a standard is attacked it is well to note the ground of the attack. Is the reproach against it that it limits one's freedom? or that obeying it benefits society less than it costs the obeyers? The latter is a home thrust, but not the former. Any clever person can dissect standards to death, can make them out to be arbitrary, inconsistent and burdensome. Without a sense of responsibility such a one is dangerous, for he breaks down standards, not on general-welfare grounds, but to display his cleverness or to rid himself of salutary restraints. tive Crit Constructive We may distinguish in society two elements: those who take Destrucstandards seriously, live up to them under trying circumstances, ics and propagate them, expose those who violate them and shame the public into enforcing the standards it professes to hold; and those Critics who regard standards as gyves, ignore them when no one is looking, flout them when they feel themselves strong with the public, and pour upon them ridicule and contumely. The former are the upbuilders, the latter the destroyers. There are times when the latter are so many and strong that there is a moral sag in society from its members being freer to give themselves up to their appetites and passions. THE DISINTEGRATION OF TRADITION What gives a social standard power over the reluctant will is chiefly public opinion, the prestige of age and the grip of early education. In our time, however, the latter two are uncommonly weak, because the startling transformations in manner of life forced upon us by the economic results of mechanical inventions have obliged us often to cast aside tradition and to laugh at childhood teachings. Here is the prime cause of the raw individualism of our age, the ruthless self-assertion, the struggle-forlife ethics founded on a perverted Darwinism, and the elevation into a dogma of that ancient maxim of the underworld, “Every man for himself." CHAP. When Break up Nature Asserts Itself The break-up of moral traditions throws men back upon unschooled human nature and has its good side as well as its bad side. Writes Professor Cooley: "It may obscure those larger Traditions truths that are the growth of time and may let loose pride, senHuman suality and scepticism; but it also awakens the child in man and a childlike pliability to the better as well as to the worse in natural impulse. We may look, among people who have lost the sense of tradition, for the sort of virtues, as well as of vices, that we find on the frontier; for plain dealing, love of character and force, kindness, hope, hospitality and courage. Alongside of an extravagant growth of sensuality, pride and caprice, we have about us a general cult of childhood and womanhood, a vast philanthropy, and an interest in everything relating to the welfare of the masses of the people." The Public is Not Wise Enough to Dispense with Standards Few People are to Trace quences of Conduct In the absence of social standards good people come to apply the simple humanitarian touchstone of conduct. "It is right for one to do what one likes, provided that nobody is harmed." This principle sounds well but is really an unsafe guide. For example, a miscreant who has confessed to an atrocious crime falls into the hands of an enraged crowd. Why should they restrain their vengeful impulses? His life is forfeit anyhow. Lynching him will save the state the expense of trying him, and strike terror to men of his ilk. It needs deep insight into society to warn the crowd, "Yield to such impulses and in the end you will lose control of them. Hang malefactors to-day and in a few years you will be burning them. Lynch for murder to-day and ere long you will be lynching for larceny or arson. Insult your courts by taking justice out of their hands and presently only inferior men will consent to be your judges." In a certain legislature a group of life insurance companies Competent used money to accelerate the passage of a needed amendment to All the So- the law on life insurance. The facts came out later in a law cial Conse- suit and a certain farmer-legislator known as "Honest John " was shown to have accepted a sum for his support. He defended himself after this fashion: "Yes, I took that money and used it in reducing the mortgage on my farm. Now, who was harmed by my taking it? Not the companies, for they are making no complaint. Not the public, for the law I voted for deserved to pass." Probably few of his constituents reflected that insurance "Social Organization," pp 354-5. companies which to-day put through a good bill by the use of money will be tempted some day to put through a bad bill by the use of money; that the success of the insurance companies will encourage railroad and traction and gas companies to use money in order to gain their end; that if all through the underworld the whisper runs that dirty money is floating about the legislature, the "grey wolves" and the "yellow dogs" of politics will move heaven and earth in order to make their way into the legislature and get some of it. "But No, we still need guidance by norms. Many questions of right and wrong are hard nuts to crack. They call for the profoundest insight into human nature and into society. Year by year human relations become more tangled. The questions of our complex society are to the questions that troubled our grandfathers as problems in quadratic equations are to problems under the "rule of three." Well does Cooley observe: "In a traditional order one is accustomed from childhood to regard usage, the authority of elders and the dominant institutions as the rule of life." in our own time there is for many persons, if not most, no authoritative canon of life, and for better or worse we are ruled by native impulse and by that private reason which may be so weak when detached from a rational whole." "We find, then, that people have to make up their own minds upon their duties as wives, husbands, mothers and daughters; upon commercial obligation and citizenship; upon the universe and the nature and authority of God. Inevitably many of us make a poor business of it. It is too much. It is as if each should sit down to invent a language for himself. These things should be thought out gradually, cooperatively, each adding little and accepting much." THE PERFECTING OF STANDARDS Should Test While most of us need the support of social standards in skirt- Sociology ing the abysses of life, there is no reason why these standards Constantly should be arbitrary or antiquated. The influence of the scien- Standards tific students of society ought to be directed to testing current standards from the rational point of view, e.g., the color line and the taboo on the marriage of near kin, and to formulating and pushing standards called for by novel situations or new knowledge, e.g., the obligations of the parent in modern society, the "Social Organization," p. 352. |