CHAP. Ideas which Loosen the Social Cement Struggle Ideas and Ideas the "ten cent" magazine, cheap editions of the classics, lyceum lecture courses, Chautauquas, "open forums," social settlements, and university extension diffuse comprehension and sympathy through social strata which hitherto had shared little in the life of the great society. DISRUPTIVE IDEAS There are ideas which disrupt as well as ideas which socialize. The pseudo-Darwinian struggle-for-life philosophy causes each to eye his fellow man as a possible competitor. The theory of an irrepressible conflict of classes in modern society is a dividing sword. In a few minutes' conversation with the women soldiers of the Battalion of Death guarding the Winter Palace on a night in November, 1917, the Bolsheviki were able to detach the working-class girls and break up a harmony that had stood the battle test. For the first time these girls beheld their comradesin-arms as bourgeoisie, i.e., aliens. Likewise the idea that all employers are exploiters and that there can be no truce until private employment utterly disappears may kill in a simpleminded employee the natural good-will he feels toward an employer who has always treated him well. Such an idea will make little headway, however, among those Cementing rooted in opposite ideas. The disappointments foreign-born soDisruptive cialists meet with in making decently-treated native American wage earners "class conscious" are not due altogether to the influence of "free land," or the chance of climbing into the employer class. These wage earners have been so well socialized as "Americans" that it is not easy to persuade them to think of themselves as exploited proletarians. Contrary to the socialist assumption, they do have much in common with their bourgeois fellow citizens-patriotic memories, aversion to kings and nobles, belief that "a man's a man for a' that," respect for hard work, pride in the spread of American ideas over the world, a certain chivalry toward women, sentiment for children, affection for the public school, enthusiasm for base ball, and scores of other things. Moreover, manners in America are genial and democratic. The wage earners have not been discriminated against politically. They are not despised as laborers are in societies with feudal traditions. Organization saves them from having to "knuckle down" in every dispute between them and the employer. Thanks to free public education the children of the workingman may be found at any social level. Hence only those native wage earners take freely to syndicalism who in remote mining camps, or lumber camps, or as homeless, womanless, voteless, floating laborers, come into contact with the ugliest side of private capitalism. THE EXPANDED SELF CHAP. XXXII The Socialization may be figured as an expansion of the individual self which takes in other persons and their interests. Now, Self there are various axes along which the self may expand. There is the spheric self which incorporates persons chiefly according to their propinquity. Those who are dearest are the neighbors. One cares most for those one sees oftenest and least for those below the horizon. Until lately this was the prevailing type; but reading, travel, city life, the rise of the professions, and social stratafication are unfavorable to it. It is the basis of neighborhood consciousness, community cooperation, and local self-gov ernment. Self Then there is the linear self, which keeps to the family line, The Linear ranging back among one's ancestors - particularly the illustrious. -and forward among one's anticipated descendants. It prompts a man to sacrifice much in order not to dishonor his forefathers or handicap his posterity. It nourishes a character which wins respect but not love. This concern with the dead and the unborn detracts from sympathy with one's fellows-save blood kin so that family feeling is often a rival of social feeling. Democracy distrusts and fears loyalty to family, because it has been stressed by its traditional enemies, kings and nobles. The late Nicholas Romanoff was not ill-intentioned, but he brought untold suffering upon the Russian people because of his feeling for the House. When the Tsar was fondling his son the Tsaritsa would exclaim, "Surely, Nicholas, you will not hand on to our boy less authority than your father bequeathed to you!" Self The flat self results from the confinement of social feeling The Flat to those within one's stratum. This self excludes those below one in the social scale because as beings of coarser clay they inspire only contempt. Altho those above are admired and envied, the we-feeling does not extend to them because they are "different" and, moreover, they look down on one. This horizontal CHAP. The Vein The Star Which is Consciousness of a Stumbling socialization weakens the barriers of dislike and jealousy between neighborhoods, parishes, and provinces but, on the whole, it creates more ill-will than it removes. Hostile local communities can avoid trouble by having little to do with one another, but hostile social classes cannot avoid contacts and relations. The vein self expands along a vein of folk who are like us or have the same major interest. In big democratic cities fellowship tends to follow occupational lines, steamfitter consorting with steamfitters, newspaper man with newspaper men, the artist in Bohemia with other Bohemians. They are competitors actual or potential, to be sure, but this fact is overshadowed by their community of interest, grievances, and hopes. Those not in love with their calling or without a calling may follow a slender vein of interest, so that they are brotherly only with a special group — baseball fans, spiritualists, Y. M. C. A. men, Browning enthusiasts or Marxian socialists. Naturally the expanding self will be discriminating and selective when it has many to choose from. The developed personality, however, ought to have a number of strong tastes and interests which bring it into sympathy with several veins of people. Hence the star self which radiates into various planes. The many-sided Roosevelt was linked up with Harvard men, boxers, big game hunters, bird observers, history writers, explorers, saga lovers, and civic reformers, in each case by one of his interests. There is room in society for all types of the expanded self, but certain types are more desirable from the standpoint of social good will and team work. On the one hand, the functional differentiation and complexity of modern society are favorable to the development of the star self. On the other hand, the great number of matters calling for team work by the organized local community put a premium on the citizen with a spheric self. The development or combination of these two holds the most promise for the future. OBSTACLES TO SOCIALIZATION The perception of difference in aspect, ways, beliefs and Difference sentiments checks the outflow of sympathy. What will repel depends on one's place in the scale of development. With the rude, personal appearance and dietary habits count for much. One stigmatizes the objects of his antipathy as "niggers,” Block 66 "greasers," "round heads," "fuzzy-wuzzies," "red necks," high brows," "red-haired foreign devils," "silk stockings,' "hard collars," or taunts them as "rat-eaters," or "frog-eaters." Somewhat higher is the type who thinks of the alien as "mick," "parley-voo," "goddam," 'wop," "sheeny," "heathen," "papist," "heretic," or "infidel." Higher yet is the man who is struck by cultural differences only and who recoils from those who are "savage," "barbarous," "benighted," or "depraved." The most alienating differences are those in diet, manners, and religious exercises. Socializers, therefore, by education, agitation, organization, change of customs, etc., strive to bring about a resemblance along these lines, or else to belittle unlikeness. Arbitrary discrimination raises a barrier. Discrimination on some relevant basis excites little protest. No one objects that weaklings are not put on the football team, ignoramuses admitted to college, or bunglers allowed to practice medicine. But those are embittered who are shut out from merited good on account of color, race, origin, or religion. The detached immigrant into the United States is readily assimilated because America has drawn no line against the foreign-born. Any unreasonable discrimination against him, as, for example, restricting the proportion of foreign-born which may be employed on public work, would check the process. It would produce the state of things formerly seen in Eastern Europe, where the socialization of dissimilar population elements was at a standstill. Hence, restrictions on land ownership directed against resident aliens are bad. No one should be admitted to this country whom we are not willing to treat in time as "one of the family." Of course, not all discriminations are written into law. If there is a tendency to elect to office or promote to the head of a bank, a business or an organization the inferior native-born just. because he is of "good old American stock," the capable foreign-born and his friends will feel themselves to be, after all, "outsiders," and will be confirmed in their hyphenism. CHAP. XXXII Arbitrary ination Excites Injustice and Be gets Re sentment puted As of Superi ority A resented imputation of inferiority is a stumbling block to AD socialization. A "chosen people" will not have many friends sumption among other peoples. A Messianic hope isolates the nation that cherishes it. A race or class is not likely to share the we-feeling with another race or class which entertains no doubts as to its own superiority. If, however, the alleged lower race or class Raises a Barrier CHAP. Playing Together is an Admission of Social Equality Tradition Carries the Past Over Into the Pres ent accepts the inferiority imputed to it and advances no pretensions to equality, the two may come into the relations of older and younger brothers in a family. Trust, on the one hand, compassion and a sense of responsibility on the other, may result in such reciprocal affection as sometimes appeared under feudalism, or between masters and slaves in our ante-bellum South. One reason why athletic games between white men and the races with which they come in contact so contribute to good feeling is that they imply equality. The governing race comes down from its "high horse" and takes its chance of being beaten in sport. The Malays of inner Borneo do not resent their being governed by the English, after these English have met them as equals on the football field. Once they have scored off the white men, they do not much mind conceding their superiority in the matter of government. Finally, traditionalism hinders the socialization of diverse elements when otherwise conditions are favorable. It may be that Irish Catholics and Orangemen, Transcaucasian Armenians and Tartars, Lithuanian coal miners and Polish coal miners, are alike oppressed and ought to feel and act together; but if they are swayed by the past they will stay apart on account of prejudices, hatreds, and memories of ancient wrongs, coming down to them from their forefathers. On the other hand, of course, traditions of friendship and mutual aid may perpetuate good feeling when living currents of interest are bearing people in opposite directions. |