Normality

“ During my professorial days at the University of Michigan I once heard an eminent divine deliver an admirable address on what he called ``The Oscillatory Law of Human Progress''—that is, upon the tendency of human society, when reacting from one evil, to swing to another almost as serious in the opposite direction. In swinging away from the old cast-iron course of instruction, and from the text-book recitation of the mere dry bones of literature, there may be seen at this hour some tendency to excessive reaction. ”

“ Social phaenomena, like all others, present two aspects, the statical, and the dynamical; the phaenomena of equilibrium, and those of motion. The statical aspect is that of the laws of social existence, considered abstractedly from progress, and confined to what is common to the progressive and the stationary state. The dynamical aspect is that of social progress. The statics of society is the study of the conditions of existence and permanence of the social state. The dynamics studies the laws of its evolution. The first is the theory of the consensus, or interdependence of social phaenomena. ”

“ Then a field for the study of human nature is opened up, and nowhere in the wide world is there a field equal to it. Does anyone want to study the drink question?—here’s the chance; the social evil?—here’s the opportunity; causes of crime?—here they may be found. Every vice and every virtue, and every source of strength and every cause of weakness incidental to humanity are found here. Every phase of every social problem has its place here. The joys and pleasures of life, the sorrows and difficulties of life, the comedy and fun of life, the tragedy and despair of life, are illustrated here. ”

“ But whatever the limitations or the opportunities, it is now our chief concern that the social conditions of its rise must greatly intensify the abstraction of science, the treatment of the consciousness of the world, which is but the sphere of action, the totality of the manifested conditions of action, as something to be cultivated wholly for its own sake. ”

“ To attain an apprehension of the importance of this distinction, let us visit, in imagination, the proceedings of some metropolis. Consider the multitude of human beings who inhabit it, and survey, in thought, the actions of the several classes into which they are divided. Their obvious actions are apparently uniform: the stability of human society seems to be maintained sufficiently by the uniformity of the conduct of its members, both with regard to themselves and with regard to others. The labourer arises at a certain hour, and applies himself to the task enjoined him. ”

“ Are men on the whole sane, or hysterical, or possibly paranoiac, in their attitude toward real and possible social conditions? Are the postulates of our social introspection valid or invalid? Have we learned all that can be known about the antecedents of present conditions, about the standards by which these conditions should be judged, about the type of future conditions toward which it is rational to aim, about the means at the disposal of man for the creation of a different social order? ”

“ The purposeful and systematic types, in common with the Individualist and Marxist, regard the Normal Social Life, for all the many thousands of years behind it, as a phase, and as a phase which is now passing, in human experience; and they are prepared for a future society that may be ultimately different right down to its essential relationships from the human past. ”

“ The problem of the individual involves in its details the study of all the social influences and institutions,—family, school, church, the law, the newspaper, the story, the motion picture, the occupations, the economic system, the unorganized personal relationships, the division of life into work and leisure time, etc. But the human wish underlies all social happenings and institutions, and human experiences constitute the reality beneath the formal social organization and behind the statistically formulated mass-phenomena. ”

“ Such is exactly my present feeling,—an unutterable weariness of the aggressive characteristics of existence in a highly organized society. The higher the social development, the sharper the struggle. One feels this especially in America,—in the nervous centres of the world's activity. ”

“ And notwithstanding its many real, and many apparent irregularities, there is also a settled order of causes and effects in the human system, as well as in the material world. The foundation of this settled order is, the sameness of human nature in its animal intellectual and moral constitution, of which the anomalies are never so great as to break up all resemblance to the common pattern. Then those conventional modes of thinking and acting which sway the conduct of the mass of mankind, strengthen the tendency to uniformity, and greatly counteract all disturbing causes. ”

“ And if this be true of the physical constitution of man, in how much higher degree is it true of his mental constitution? All our physical parts we bring with us into the world; but the mind develops afterwards. ”

“ When we come to analyse the conception of Disease, physical or mental, in society or in the individual, it evidently means, as already hinted once or twice, loss of unity. Health, therefore, should mean unity, and it is curious that the history of the word entirely corroborates this idea. ”

“ But what sometimes strikes me with some surprise is, not that the present condition of the world, with one sole master, should seem the common-place and natural condition, but that it should have come to seem so common-place and natural—in nine months. ”

“ In any case, it is the change he effects in the physical environment which is a sign to us of how we should conduct ourselves. Our action is socially controlled because we endeavor to refer what we are to do to the same situation in which he is acting. ”

“ May we not welcome, as at least a step in the right direction, a change in our conventional habits, which may extend, though in ever so small a degree, the region of common thoughts and aims, common hopes and disappointments, common joys and common sorrows? ”

“ Am I going too fast to carry my Readers with me to these obvious conclusions? Surely a moment’s reflection, and a single instance from common life, must convince every one that our whole social system is based upon Regularity, or Equality of Angles. ”

“ And the question of the prolonged existence of this comparatively new social phenomenon, either in its present or some modified form, turns, therefore, entirely on the quasi-natural laws of the social body. If they favour it, it will survive; when they do not, it will vanish as the mists of the morning before the sun. ”

“ WHEN one passes in review the individual causes that disturb and complicate our social life, by whatever names they are designated, and their list would be long, they all lead back to one general cause, which is this: the confusion of the secondary with the essential. Material comfort, education, liberty, the whole of civilization—these things constitute the frame of the picture ”

“ Only after all their separate forms, from their most primitive to their most developed types, have been inductively determined and psychologically interpreted, can we gradually solve the riddle: “What is society in its essence?” ”

“ But leaving this, let us rather look within, into the Spiritual condition of Society, and see what aspects and prospects offer themselves there. For after all, it is there properly that the secret and origin of the whole is to be sought: the Physical derangements of Society are but the image and impress of its Spiritual; while the heart continues sound, all other sickness is superficial, and temporary. ”

“ With the growth of the social aggregate, social structure and functions become varied, differentiated, and rigid; social pressure increases, while individuality and originality are ever on the decrease, sinking to a uniform level of dead mediocrity and commonplace. There is limitation of the field of consciousness, limitation of voluntary activity, monotony, routine, and inhibitions, all growing with the increase of mass, structure, and social pressure on individual units. ”

“ This singular degree of regularity en masse, combined with the extreme of irregularity in the cases composing the mass, is a felicitous verification a posteriori of the law of causation in its application to human conduct. Assuming the truth of that law, every human action, every murder, for instance, is the concurrent result of two sets of causes. On the one part, the general circumstances of the country and its inhabitants; the moral, educational, economical, and other influences operating on the whole people, and constituting what we term the state of civilization. ”

“ If the elementary social condition be different in regard to religion, government, arts, science, industry, the resulting movements of society will be different. Hence, when we have ascertained by accurate observation upon and record of the social phenomena, that the social movement is uniformly in a certain direction, and that certain results uniformly follow, we shall know in what elements the conditions of society must be changed, in order to change the results. ”

“ Instead of being surprised at the alarming divergence of views produced by the universal propagation during the last century of this anarchical tendency, should we not rather experience a gratified wonder at discovering that, thanks to the natural good sense and intellectual moderation of men in general, [2] the disorder is not more complete, and that, beneath the decomposition of social maxims, certain rallying-points for humanity may still be dimly discerned? ”

“ All this multitude will have this much in common, that it will be dealing, not with the primary inexorable logic of natural laws, but with the shifting, uncertain prejudices and emotions of the general mass of people. ”

“ Every healthy society falls into three distinct types, which reciprocally [Pg 218] condition one another and which gravitate differently in the physiological sense; and each of these has its own hygiene, its own sphere of work, its own special feeling of perfection, and its own mastership. ”

“ Whether the incidents, or the characters, are copied from life, is of little importance—The only question is, if the circumstances, and situations, are altogether improbable? If not—whether the consequences might not have followed from the circumstances?—This is a grand question, applicable to all the purposes of education, morals, and legislation—and on this I rest my moral—'Do men gather figs of thorns, or grapes of thistles?' asked a moralist and a reformer. ”

“ And so on to the most elaborate phases of self-consciousness and social consciousness, to the metaphysician pondering the Ego, or the sociologist meditating on the Social Organism. Self and society go together, as phases [Pg 9] of a common whole. I am aware of the social groups in which I live as immediately and authentically as I am aware of myself ”

“ Generalizing, and now thinking of social phenomena in terms of the psychology of the herd, he says that the trouble in modern [292] society is that capacity for individual reaction—that is for making different reactions to the same stimulus—has far outstripped the capacity for intercommunication. Society has grown in complexity and strength, but it has also grown in disorder. ”

“ Throughout it was essentially one phase of human organization. When one comes to examine the final result, it is astonishing to remark the small amount of essential change, of positively final and irreparable alteration, in the conditions of the common life. ”

“ If society is to progress on a truly humanistic basis, without being subject to mental epidemics and virulent social diseases to which the subconscious falls an easy victim, the personal consciousness of every individual should be cultivated to the highest degree possible. ”

“ The actual mechanism by which society, while it has grown in strength and complexity, has also grown in confusion and disorder, is that peculiarity of the gregarious mind which automatically brings into the monopoly of power the mental type which I have called the {161} stable and common opinion calls normal. ”

“ They consist of certain general tendencies which may be perceived in society; a progressive increase of some social elements, and diminution of others, or a gradual change in the general character of certain elements. It is easily seen, for instance, that as society advances, mental tend more and more to prevail over bodily qualities, and masses over individuals ”

“ It is our intention here to show how this inevitable result operates on civilized existence by its being one of the conditions of Man’s nature, and, consequently, of all arrangements of civilized society. ”

“ These movements, too, seem at different epochs to flare up and spread into true epidemics, utterly consuming all inherent foundations of logic and common sense, in the white heat of the emotional interest with which they advance. ”

“ Those who have ever had occasion to reflect on this subject, must have felt the difficulties which surround it, and have been aware how extremely difficult it is to say what may be faulty in our mode of using these necessaries of our existence. If I were asked to select an example, as a standard of the just equipoise of these conditions, I should take the ploughman; intellect at the standard of day to day existence, moderate food, vigorous but not over-strained labour, plenty of air, and plentiful exposure. ”

“ Social reality in its every aspect is shot through and through with feeling. Whatever be the categories according to which we divide social phenomena, feeling of some sort will have to be recognized in each and all of them. ”

“ In this connection I may observe that physical and social conditions have a greater or a less influence in proportion as the physical and psychical constitution of the individual is more or less sound and vigorous. ”