Edward Alsworth Ross

“ It is not a science of group tyranny, needing, as a corrective to its one-sidedness, a science of ethics that shall regard conduct from the side of the individual. It is quite competent to comprehend in its view at once the benefits of restraints or sacrifices on the one hand, and their costs on the other, and to seek the point of equilibrium between them. It accordingly holds the balance true between the individual as restrained and the individual as a member of the public and hence beneficiary of the restraint. No science of ethics, therefore, can assist sociology to its conclusion. ”

“ The strength and the weakness of sympathy must now be apparent. Love of others will safeguard the family and a circle of friends, but it will not hold a man to his duty toward that large body of fellow citizens for whom he has no feeling but indifference. It will check men when the evil of a deed is sure to fall upon a known individual, but not when it lost in the vague mass called "the public." One who will shrink from self-aggrandizement when the harm to others can be clearly visualized, will not hesitate at a foul deed when the consequences, though vast, are vague and indefinite. ”

“ Could we imagine a society in which prison or pillory carried no hint of shame, caused no forfeiture of public esteem, no loss of religious peace, no wound to self-respect—and this is the case of political offenders in many countries—its legal penalties would have just the deterrence they would have in the hands of brigands pirates, invaders or despots. It is when this wholesome alliance between society and the police is broken that virtue departs out of the law and it ceases to bind men. ”

“ Looking from above, sympathy appears as compassion, the impulse to help another by denying one's self. Looking from below, it appears as envy, the impulse to relieve one's distress by sharing in the good fortune of another. In either case, extreme unlikeness of condition inspires feelings which tend to lessen or remove that unlikeness. But the differentiating group is riddled with inequality, so that, did it trust itself to spontaneous feelings, apart from law and morality, it would be ground to powder between compassion and envy as between the upper and the nether millstone. ”

“ Now the instinct of an angered public is to refuse these coöperations by which we live and have our being. First to be refused will be, of course, those offices that spring from good will and entail trouble. Disapproval will interrupt the friendly aid rendered between neighbors. Stopping the straying ox, warning of the unsafe culvert, helping house the hay from the wet, lifting the mired cart, nursing the sick—all these services that require one to go out of his way—cease. So with those coöperations, the benefits of which are one-sided, "accommodations" we call them. ”

“ Long before the common mood has found such ample manifestation, an entirely different type of punishment will make its appearance. In the communities of today one lives not on the fruits of his own toil, but on the products of other men, that is, men live by the practice of coöperation at various removes from the self-sufficing stage. Most of one's well-being comes through coöperations that are advantageous to both parties, some comes as aid that benefits one but does not burden the other, and some succor in times of misfortune comes in way of help that imposes a sacrifice. ”

“ In seeking that which is most distinctive in society, it is not necessary to pause at the threshold, finger on lip, and contemplate the outlines of a colossal Something, Leviathan, Superorganism, Social Organism, Social Body or other amorphous monster, composed of millions of human beings, and having distinct parts, motions, activities and aims. Society there certainly is, but it is better to begin the study of the human complex by surveying its work, rather than by describing a half-mythical entity. ”

“ It may be literally true, that the chief formation of a long-drawn social life is not the relation of authority and subordination between parts of the group, not the gradation of its members into classes, not the systems of sustaining, transporting or regulating organs, but certain ideals and standards, certain likes and dislikes, certain admirations and abhorrences become common to its members. Here then, I venture to suggest, is the ultimate test of association. The abiding of men in the same neighborhood without conflict is mere aggregation. ”

“ The power of wealth or place to command an entourage of flatterers makes extremely difficult the control of rulers by public opinion. Between throne and people hangs oftentimes a thick curtain of obsequious courtiers and buzzing sychophants that shut away unwelcome murmurs till the gathering whirlwind of popular indignation tears away the curtain and topples over the throne.
The might of public wrath is destroyed by anything that diverts it from an individual and spreads it harmlessly over a network of administrative responsibility. ”

“ Yet it will not do to look upon law as an obsolescent form of control beyond which society is rapidly passing. Granting that out of a hundred law-abiding only one obeys the law from fear of its penalties, it does not follow that the penal system holds a correspondingly insignificant place in the system of control. If the one rascal out of a hundred men were permitted to trespass with impunity, the force of example and the contagion of lawlessness would weaken the higher forms of control and detach man after man from the ninety-nine honest men. ”

“ Though claiming to be experts in values and adepts in the art of getting the most out of life, and all the while professing loyalty to the interests of the individual they undertake to advise, they really hold a brief from society. They are disguised emissaries, unavowed apostles of social order, unaccredited agents of control, bent on gyving the individual rather than on sending him to his goal by the smoothest path. Under color of giving him friendly counsel they betray him into the service of the community. ”

“ To a cluster of such individuals thus cleverly availing themselves of their joint wit and art in compassing their private and separate ends we should hardly give the name "society."
A deeper change is wrought in a man when his judgment as to the worth of things is modified by the wisdom born of association. Not only does light as to the properties and laws of things help him to gain his ends, but knowledge as to himself, his body and his mind, and as to the course of man's life often affects his choice of ends. ”

“ Public control is not only more alert than law but it is much cheaper. To keep a man in order merely by letting him know your mind is as much simpler than legal process, as faith-cure is simpler than surgery. On the other hand when public sentiment fails to coerce and public action must be invoked, the waste of energy in securing cooperation and giving feet and hands to the amorphous public is enormous. ”

“ The growing reliance of men upon each other in order to get the economic advantages of cooperation strengthens the grip of the group on the individual. Liable as he is to have his life course changed and his prosperity blighted by the resentful action of his fellows, he is loath to fly in the face of the common will. The increasing contact of men and the better facilities for forming and focusing the public will also point the same way. The day of the sturdy backwoodsman, settler, flatboatman or prospector, defiant not alone of law but of public opinion as well, is gone never to return. ”

“ It is by these signs and proofs of transforming power in the individual life that we come to discern in the human swarm the presence of that we call "society."
As the achievements of society are registered chiefly in the modifications wrought in men, we arrive at the nature of society by noting and comparing these modifications. What changes are outward and slight can never point to the very essence of a society, nor can those changes that go deep into the nature and life of men be merely its by-products or refer to its secondary characteristics. ”

“ Public action comprises those measures, other than mere manifestations of opinion or sentiment, taken by the public in order to punish or reward conduct.
The penalties inflicted by one's fellows form a graduated series ranging from the lightest breath of disapproval or the least perceptible chill of manner up to ostracism and mob-murder. The punishment mildest and most suited to slight faults appears in social intercourse and takes the form of coldness, constraint or avoidance. The offender is not greeted so warmly, his hand not clasped so cordially, his presence not sought so often. ”

“ War tests not alone physical strength but also the excellence of the social organization and particularly of the group solidarity. The proportion of fighting men that can be got into the field is an element in the result. This, in turn, depends on the amount of social cohesion that has been developed. Indifference of the individual to the fate of the rest, of parts of a group to the fate of other parts, felt divergence of interest, jealousies, dissensions, internal strife, all point the way to ruin and must be provided against by resort to social control. ”

“ The efficiency of the social system, into which the individual thus endowed is born, is tested by its power to shape him, far more thoroughly than his heredity has shaped him, to life in society, by its power to build on the foundation afforded by instinct story after story of obedience and loyalty and public spirit. As soon as societies acquire this power a striking change takes place in the significance of inter-group conflicts. Whereas formerly the group with the more altruistic members survived, now the victory often falls to the society with the better system of artificial control. ”

“ Scattered through the heedless mass who throw up their caps for bold rascality, and jeer at patient labor for the unmanifest public good are sagacious men, who say "Do we dare encourage this?" "Do we dare discourage that?" By reasoning, by expostulation, by warning of consequences the mass is enlightened, the sober second thought prevails and the public is prevented from quarrelling with its own interests. ”

“ The blade of the law playing up and down in its groove with iron precision, is hardly so good an instrument for regulating behavior as the flexible lash of public censure, which can delicately graduate the penalty of the offense. ”

“ This is one of the chief ways in which the units in the working organs of society are held together and the organ itself vitalized. When, as in the case of a ship's crew, a factory group, a plantation gang, a railroad service, a corps de ballet, the staff of a shop or the force of a mine, there is no critical attitude of all toward the contribution or service of each and the stimulating principle is furnished by captain, employer or superintendent with power of fine or dismissal and bonus or promotion, the control is of a distinctly coarser quality and the association is of a lower order. ”

“ Consequently an offender escapes the lowering glances and bitter words of the public by taking refuge in his class where his fault is excused and condoned. The bruiser dives into the sporting class and finds sympathy. The friends of the ballot-sharp close up and shield him from opprobrium. The snob shuts himself away from popular derision in a social atmosphere surcharged with contempt for the herd. This right of asylum with complaisant coteries is a very grave thing for it often transforms an act of punishment into a class war and rends the community in twain. ”

“ It supplements law by taking note of offenses that cannot well be brought within a legal definition. Law fences off this or that area for the individual, but the public builds an inside fence, lest one individual should insolently override the interests of the rest.
The delay so conspicuous in the action of law, is not present in public action. To utilize the temper of the community it is necessary to sieze the auspicious moment, to strike while the iron is hot. The public has many things to think of and its attention cannot long be held at one point. ”

“ Observe these signs of social distrust of the individual, and tell us if all that is needed to socialize men is to give them more light as to their personal interest!
Some there are who admit the existence of unsocial men, but maintain that they are only a handful, and that the mass of the population respond of their own accord to the requirements of social life. The apparatus of control, therefore, while needful to protect the group against the few evil-disposed, does not send its influence very deeply into the life of the community, and is not one of the great systems of social organs. ”

“ Social Influence means the ascendency exercised over the individual by the throng of men in which he is embedded. The stimulus given to the lust for wealth by life in money-worshiping communities, the whetting the appetites received in profligate circles, the color the immigrant takes from the vices or aspirations of his adopted people—these exemplify social influence. It is the contagion of emotions, ambitions, desires. Though it may describe a stream of tendency one cannot stem, it results from the contact and intercourse of men as individuals. ”

“ Besides its services in behalf of the propagating organ of society, sympathy is valuable to the larger group, as a stimulus to spontaneous aid and a main spring of beneficence. With its timely help it mitigates the vicissitudes of the individual life, averts the stroke of misfortune, lessens the smart of disaster, tones down the harsher inequalities of lot, and for the weaker ones, such as women, widows, children and the aged, softens the rigor of individualistic competition. ”

“ They are rewards, not of goods, but of honors and glory, which, while superlatively prized by most men, cost but little to confer. By careful and well considered bestowal of public attentions and marks of distinction, a people can reap the fruit of heroic exertions, that, if recompensed by material rewards, would entail a prodigious burden of taxes. Its good will and admiration is an asset that, if well husbanded and prudently spent by a community, will procure it most precious services and sacrifices from its members. ”

“ If this be the essence of social development, we may dispense with sociology, for the economist long ago described the social system of wealth far better than the sociologist has ever done, and that without aid from biology. It must be admitted, therefore, either that the phenomena of specialization, communication and exchange are not the sole primary characters, or else that society is nothing more than the long familiar economic aggregate. ”

“ To use the organic figure, we attend to the living body of society rather than to the dead corpse, thereby bringing to light not only the organs but their actual manner of operating. Hitherto the point of departure, in studying regulation, has been the visible agency such as government, press, or theater. The consequence has been that while the specific disciplines have been perceived we have overlooked that great portion of control which does not proceed from definite organizations, and which, by reason of its pervasiveness, supplies the moral groundwork of all the rest. ”

“ While it is all-important that a knowledge of punishments leak out and percolate that stratum of society which is to be held in awe by them, it should not be thrust upon the law-abiding, lest the growth of humane sentiments be checked upon the one hand or, on the other, the punishments under the influence of public opinion be made too lax. ”