СНАР. Culture Fitted to Nature Spread Farther than Those Fitted to A Given Uniformity Lasts Only Until imagery of Christianity is so foreign to the Eskimos that the translator of the New Testament into their tongue had to render the word "sheep," wherever it occurred, by "little seals." What commends the Gospels to the Greenlander is, therefore, not their pastoral background, but their insight into the human heart. If a truth like the binomial theorem or the rotundity of the earth becomes established in men's minds, the resulting plane of agreement never breaks up. But many planes are laid by things which have only a relative value. They are good until something better is to be had. The use of bronze spreads until the art of smelting iron is developed. Romanesque churches multiply until Gothic architecture is perfected. Now, the planes laid down by partial truths and relative goods are liable to be shattered if Something something of greater merit presents itself. After touching its perigee the Phoenician culture recoiled before the superior GræcoRoman culture. After a certain expansion hieroglyphic writing met a barrier in the spread of the simpler alphabetic writing. The abacus conquered China and Russia, but its empire was doomed by the spread of the practice of "figuring" made pos sible by the invention of the cipher (o). The formal duel, after gaining vogue with the upper orders everywhere, has largely gone out owing to the decline of the military spirit and the growth of the influence of the popular classes. Better Comes into View The Role of Force fusion of a Higher Culture CULTURE AND DOMINION Some things spread everywhere whatever their origin, e.g., toin the Dif- bacco, coffee, the cross-bow, firearms, printing from movable type, the American saddle. On the other hand, the boundaries between different religions, types of family, and moral codes curiously coincide with the limits of by-gone empire. Hellenic civilization took hold wherever Alexander bore the Greek arms and stopped where he stopped. The line between Latin and Teutonic Europe is strangely reminiscent of the limes, or frontier of the Roman Empire. Islam went where the conquering Arab, Turk or Mogul bore it, rarely farther. There would be to-day no penetration of modern civilization into Japan, India, China, Turkestan, the Caucasus, Northern Africa and the Soudan if some Western nation had not gone there sword in hand. It is true that Japan, China and Siam are freely borrowing Western ways without having surrendered their political independence, but they would not do so had there been none to force open their gates to Western influences. Take the case of the Philippines. Had not America become mistress there how long would it have been before, by voluntary imitation, the Filipinos would have gained the benefit of such American blessings as public sanitation, compulsory schooling, equality before the law, and representative government? Surely a century or two. The German scholars erred in representing Teutonic aggression as necessary to the diffusion of the blessings of German Kultur. The advanced peoples would soon have borrowed the best features of their Kultur; were in fact doing so when the World War broke out. Back in history, it is true, rapid propagation of a higher culture has rarely occurred save after conquest. But printing, school systems, universal literacy, international reading matter, and the cinema have changed popular psychology. Our age borrows as never before. WHY SOME GOOD THINGS NEED TO BE PUSHED The reason why some good things spread of themselves, whereas other good things do not spread unless they have military or political backing or are subjects of propaganda, depends upon a distinction made by Sumner and stated thus by Keller: 3 "It is not hard to demonstrate to an ignorant person in this country that he should learn to read and write; he can see that by living in this society. Similarly for his interest is it that he shall use the English language. Tests lie all about him and are immediate and decisive. But try to persuade him by abstract argument to give up the vendetta, to renounce anarchistic leanings, or to change his religion, and you fail. There are no immediate and decisive tests at hand. You cannot demonstrate that interest will be subserved by change; you cannot even secure visualization of evil consequences. ... The more nearly custom represents direct reaction on environment in the actual struggle for material aids to existence, the more rational a test does it undergo; and, conversely, the more derived the societal forms the more clearly do they fall under the tests of tradition rather than reason." "You can persuade a savage of the inadequacy of his stone hatchet long before he can be made to see that his family system is capable of being superseded by one yielding better satisfaction to his interests." "Societal Evolution," pp. 131-136. СНАР. XLVI Force and the Diffu sion of the Blessings of German Superior. Not Insure Accept ity Does ance Un less it is Manifest СНАР. The Values of of Themselves Among the Backward, but Need to be Propagated This is why superior drinks, foods, narcotics, materials, tools, implements, methods of production and means of enjoyment make their way rapidly among peoples and races; while superior sex morals, forms of the family, upbringing of children, relations between parents and children, status of social classes, treatment of the weak, relief of the poor, types of recreation, and political institutions make their way slowly or not at all. Since their merit is not so evident and appealing as that of a reaper or a bicycle, people reject them and persist in the bad old ways of their ancestors. Here again we come upon justification of the right type of foreign missions, for to-day along with the propagation of the elements of the Christian religion goes propagation of the best moral standards, family type, class relations, civic ideals, educational methods and governmental policies in vogue in the country which sends out the missionary. In China "The missionary is the introducer of current Western standards. He instructs his schoolboys respecting bathing, spitting, the use of the handkerchief, neatness of garb, the care of one's room, modesty in personal habits. He teaches the people to clean house and yard, to whitewash the walls of the home, to scour the floors of the school room or church. He enforces the duty of being humane to dumb animals, of sparing defective children, of educating daughters, and consulting the wife. "Unwittingly he reads into the Scriptures everything that has commended itself to the conscience of Christendom, and becomes, in spite of himself, the voice of his country and his time. The girls' schools in the American missions reflect American ideas as to woman's proper place. The industrial schools inoculate with American belief in the dignity of manual labor a people so disdainful of toil that every one exempt from it advertises the fact by wearing his finger-nails long. The notions of government taught in the mission colleges would have horrified those who Christianized the Irish and the Saxons. The place these same colleges give to natural science and scientific methods betrays the modern spirit, and would have scandalized St. Boniface or St. Francis Xavier." Missions, therefore, are an infinitely milder and cheaper means of disseminating the higher elements of a superior culture than dominion. The proper relation between force and persuasion is 4 Ross, "The Changing Chinese," pp. 246, 249. seen in the Far East, where the gun boats of the European powers have but procured for missionaries the opportunity to live, work and go about without molestation. СНАР. ILVI The Exten- sion of Planes of Indi The uniformities laid down by certain social processes do not condemn us to become uniform. On the contrary, they provide us with opportunities for a richer diversity. As our own culture borrows from other cultures we have more to choose from. Con- the Growth sider how our literature has been enriched in a century and a viduality half by the addition of Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Icelandic, Celtic, Finnish and Ukrainian masterpieces; how the stock of good music has gathered in lovely folk airs from all over the world! The like is true of styles of painting or architecture, philosophical speculations, religious tendencies, theories of life and conduct. A cosmopolitan culture offers in its every department a wealth of elements from which each individual may choose that which appeals most to his nature. СНАР. Standards Blood of Society CHAPTER XLVII STANDARDS ESIDES the planes formed by voluntary imitation there are planes laid through society by social pressure. The doing or abstaining from something is believed to involve human welfare, so the group makes it binding upon all. The pattern of conduct society thus puts its influence behind may be called standard.1 THE IMPORTANCE OF STANDARDS Standards are, perhaps, the most important things in society. Very Life They are invisible, intangible, ill-defined, yet the quality of a society is more revealed in its standards than in anything else. The characterizing differences between medieval society and modern society, between Chinese society and American society, may be read in the standards which these societies respectively uphold. Culture heroes, founders of religion, prophets, saints, evangelists, reformers, poets and artists leave a lasting impression on society chiefly by making or modifying its standards. The precipitate of wisdom from experience in living together is passed on by the same means. Let the sociologist but know the standards of a people and he can infer the chief features of their social history. But for the Social We Should Savages The effective social standards constitute, as it were, a trestle Standards by means of which a people rises farther and farther above the plane of its instincts. If the higher standards were broken down, it would sink to the barbarian level. If all gave way, it would find itself on the moral plane of savages. There is no reason to suppose that our original nature is appreciably better than that of our Neolithic ancestors. If we behave much better than they did it is owing to the influence of the social standards we are reared in. When by tradition, early suggestion, or education they have become second nature, they lift the individual without sub 1 I prefer this word to the word mores (suggested by Professor Sumner) because the latter is an alien unfamiliar word and, besides, its singular is unavailable. |