Rascality

“ Before calling a certain trait a weakness, and our own opposite trait a superiority, we must be sure, as critics say, that we "know the context"; we must be sure that what appears a defect in the character of another race will not prove to be a strength when better understood. ”

“ Under what conditions, and by what means, this temperament is engendered in race or individual, we will not discuss at present. It is sufficient to note that it exists, and that there is in us a beauty-sense, separate from the other senses and above them, separate from the reason and of nobler import, separate from the soul and of equal value—a sense that leads some to create, and others, the finer spirits as I think, to contemplate merely. ”

“ For we do not take that to mean merely average quality—if it did, over-eating, over-drinking, and that form of speech which I will call over-emphasis—would all be manly qualities—and the evolution of the race would, according to that doctrine, lie on the lines of all sorts of over-indulgence. But when we say "manly," we mean the pick and polish of those qualities which enable a man to possess himself and to develop all his faculties ”

“ In particular, I have long felt that the prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions of human character as innate, and in the main indelible, and to ignore the irresistible proofs that by far the greater part of those differences, whether between individuals, races, or sexes, are such as not only might but naturally would be produced by differences in circumstances, is one of the chief hindrances to the rational treatment of great social questions, and one of the greatest stumbling blocks to human improvement. ”

“ In his dealings with men, he had known many rascals, more than the public was aware were rascals, and he respected some of them. But they were the men, who, once having committed themselves to devious ways, used other men as their tools. ”

“ Various forms of natural character and temperament would no doubt be found to occur in constant proportions among any large group of persons of the same race, but what those proportions may be has never yet been investigated. ”

“ Past training and individual differences in temperament not only limit the possibilities that do occur to us; they seriously distort, color, and qualify those of which we become conscious. We forecast differently and with differing degrees of accuracy the consequences of those possible courses of action which do occur to us according to the influence and stimulation which particular native traits and acquired impulses have in our conduct. ”

“ The temperament, character, or genius of a people predetermines within certain limits the spirit of its institutions; it is the direct exponent of the quality of racial irritability, and apparently more fundamental, persistent and inimitable than intellectual traits. We are all aware how apt the Orientals who attend our universities are to acquire our intellectual habits, and how superficial an impression our pedagogical systems leave on their character. ”

“ Everybody knows that education, bringing-up, and intelligence are indubitably expressed in style, but it may also be observed that style clearly expresses softness or hardness of a character, kindness or cruelty, determination or weakness, integrity or carelessness, and hundreds of other qualities. ”

“ Estimated according to its genuine value, therefore, an abstract conception may be divided into three classes—physical, moral, and intellectual. Whiteness and colours in general, levity and weight, hardness, sound, and the like qualities, are all abstract types which belong to the physical class. Goodness, virtue, love, hatred, and anger must be assigned to the moral class ”

“ Prejudice leads us to suppose that between the sensory stimulus and the utterance of the words a process of thought must have intervened, but there seems no good reason for such a supposition. Any habitual action, such as eating or dressing, may be performed on the appropriate occasion, without any need of thought, and the same seems to be true of a painfully large proportion of our talk. ”

“ Nevertheless, the face of a consistently just, and of a consistently unjust person, may always be rightly distinguished at a glance; and if the qualities are continued by descent through a generation or two, there arises a complete distinction of race. ”

“ Whereof the ignorance is shown in all evil colorists by the violence and positiveness of their hues, and by dulness and discordance consequent, for the very brilliancy and real power of all color is dependent on the chastening of it, as of a voice on its gentleness, and as of action on § 8. ”

“ But the influence of innate tendencies upon the process of personal and social development is manifest not merely when we consider those broad differences between men which we term racial ; it is in evidence also to some extent when we consider national differences, for these are by no means wholly imitative differences. ”

“ Your curious race, for all its defects, has certain qualities of intelligence, and above all that strange quality of activity and what you call courage. If we could have summoned up the same activity; if we had possessed the same courage to attack against odds, this would not have happened. ”

“ Finally, in states of high civilization and in individuals of that restless and nervous temperament which is common in civilization, we have (5) a tendency to the appearance of an exotic element in the ideal of beauty, and in place of admiring that kind of beauty which most closely approximates to the type of their own race men begin to be agreeably affected by types which more or less deviate from that with which they are most familiar. ”

“ And by what scale do you measure, so as to form a correct decision—is your standard of your own merit so accurately settled, that you can instantly perceive truth from flattery, appropriating just so much of a compliment as you deserve, and rejecting the rest. ”

“ This is a bold statement, but a true one all the same. The most notorious of rascals know that sooner or later they will be found out, and therefore they plan their lives accordingly. But they are always found out in the end. ”

“ You can persuade any one in five minutes that he or she belongs to some special and blessed and privileged sort of human being; it takes a lifetime to destroy that persuasion. There are these confounded differences of colour, of eye and brow, of nose or hair, small differences in themselves except that they give a foothold and foundation for tremendous fortifications of prejudice and tradition, in which hostilities and hatreds may gather. ”

“ The quality of our taste, the predominance of our feelings, or even the casualty of circumstance, may produce associations of ideas, confirmed by habit into predilection or enmity. To search for the cause of these varying opinions, to examine the foundation of these attachments and prejudices, and to reduce them all to the rule of equity is the office of the judgment, that most important effort of the reasoning powers. ”

“ In proportion as these prejudices are known to be generally diffused, or long received, the taste which conforms to them approaches nearer to certainty, and to a sort of resemblance to real science, even where opinions are found to be no better than prejudices. ”

“ Many diversities, however, both of moral and æsthetical judgments, may be traced to accidental causes. Some one who is greatly admired, or who possesses great influence, is distinguished by some peculiarity of appearance, or introduces some peculiarity of dress. ”

“ By permanent we mean the strong tendencies that are built up by continued thought in a certain direction. One becomes a Methodist, a Democrat, a conservative, a radical, a pessimist, an optimist, etc., by continuity of similar experiences and similar reactions to these experiences. Germans, French, Irish, Italians, Chinese, have characteristic sets or ways of reacting to typical situations that may be called racial. These prejudicial ways of reacting may be called racial sets or attitudes. Religious, political, and social prejudices may all be called sets or attitudes. ”

“ You feel the balancing of the centuries very delicately, my friend, and their results are finely weighed in your understanding, for your mind is sensitive to the characteristics of peoples, to the huge racial tones too large to be hurriedly heard. You know the roar of the ways of men, its sum and its insignificance. ”

“ The lowest level, representing the past of the race, is primitive like a savage, and infantile, like a child; it is instinctive, unalterable, and universal; it knows no restraint, no culture, and no prudence. ”

“ But even if we do not dispute about such tastes, the list of such regards is a very short one, and when we come to the profounder mental, moral, and social differences, we can find no other terms than greater and less to describe the relative endowments of the widely sundered races. ”

“ She weighed this, a forefinger against a cheek.
“The big ways are those which indicate character, aren’t they? While the little ones only make for habits. Men differ as to their habits, but in character they’re all cut on the same pattern—two or three patterns at most.” ”

“ The world used to seem to me divided into two classes that never met—we performing people and the public, the thousand white faces that looked at us and went away and talked to other white faces and forgot all about performing animals till they came next time. ”

“ The customs and manners of a sensitive and highly-trained race are always Vital: that is to say, they are orderly manifestations of intense life, like the habitual action of the fingers of a musician. ”

“ To bring this hope to fruition, we are compelled daily to turn more and more to a conscientious study of the phenomena of race-contact,—to a study frank and fair, and not falsified and colored by our wishes or our fears. ”

“ I want a word to express that middle quality of aspect which is contrived by the mingling of comely lineaments with bad passions. Possibly the effect is no more than a neutralisation of nature’s good intentions, [289] wherein we behold a handsome countenance sunk into a species of physical negation, by moral qualities tugging it hard in the direction of repellent ugliness. ”

“ Within the different forms, on the other hand, there seems to be a tendency toward the appearance of particular mental processes, those concerned in the visual perception of the body, in felt organic stir and in verbal perceptions and ideas. And now, what of continuity?
Prejudice is strong; but you must be ready to discard it. Experimental and everyday observation both testify, when the question is directly put, to the intermittence of the self-experience. We are not always aware of our self. ”

“ With the moral symptoms of a changing temper there are perceptible changes in appearance. His countenance develops and takes the stamp of his character; the soft and sparse down upon his cheeks becomes darker and stiffer. His voice grows hoarse or rather he loses it altogether. ”

“ What traits, temperament, mentality, manner, or character, are distinctive of members of your family? Which of these have been inherited, which acquired?
61. What problems in society are due to defects in man's original nature?
62. What problems are the result of defects in folkways and mores?
63. In what way do racial temperament and tradition determine national characteristics? To what extent is the religious behavior of the negro determined (a) by temperament, (b) by imitation of white culture? ”

“ Perhaps in every face, whether it has beauty of line or the homely ruggedness graved by generations of positive character, the dominant feature is a certain poise of mind: these men would think, and then judge ”

“ But, apart from other considerations, the prejudices of race are not to be argued about. They may be just as irrational as the repugnance some people have to snakes, some to cats, some to spiders. But you were asking what 'level' we preach. Why, the level of success and prosperity, to be sure! ”

“ Taking human experience in a general way, the choosings of different men are to a great extent the same. The race as a whole largely agrees as to what it shall notice and name; and among the noticed parts we select in much the same way for accentuation and preference, or subordination and dislike. ”

“ It is one of the forms in which we naturally give expression to our tastes, our constructive faculties, our reason, our feelings, our habits—in a word, to our character, as a whole. This expression is often greatly modified by the arbitrary laws of Fashion, and by circumstances of time, place, and condition, which we can not wholly control; but can hardly be entirely falsified. Even that arch tyrant, the reigning Mode, whatever it may be, leaves us little room for choice in materials, forms, and colors, and the choice we make indicates our prominent traits of character. ”

“ This is true of what we call a bizarre mixture of incongruent elements in mode of attire or in manners; for it is experience and the habits of social life which dispose our minds to regard them as foreign one to the other. Much of our mirthful gratification at exhibitions of the incongruous arises through a perception of the intrusion of something foreign into a situation. ”

“ We can therefore merely form the general notion of ‘quality’ in such a way as to lead us to seek further for the universal factor of all sensible qualities. Now since the classes of these qualities are altogether disparate,—warm and sweet, for example, having no common element in their content,—such universal factor lies solely in the form which our representation gives to them all. ”

“ To the scientific temperament the artistic temperament is unstable and irrational, as the former is dry and ungenerous to the latter. Such broad and recognized types, with a few others like them, ramify into a multitude of ephemeral parties and classes,—racial, political, social, literary, scholarly,—and most of the arguments in the world can be followed back to these essential and irremovable differences of character. ”