Social association

“ Can I say our social laws are generally better, or show a nobler insight into the wants of man and woman? I do, indeed, say what I believe, that voluntary association for improvement in these particulars will be the grand means for my nation to grow, and give a nobler harmony to the coming age. ”

“ On that basis a company of gladiators or a pugilist's club ranks below a village improvement society; that in turn yields in importance to a learned association of physicians discussing the best means of relieving human suffering. In the slow process of social evolution those forms that do not contribute to the welfare of the race will lose their place in society.
11. Results of Association.—The results of association are among the permanent assets of the race. Man has become what he is because of his social relations, and further progress is dependent upon them. ”

“ And thence would spring society, free association, hundreds of associations which would regulate social life; though at the same time they would remain variable, in fact often opposed and hostile to one another. ”

“ Experiments in Association.—In the history of human kind numerous experiments in association have been made; those which have served well in the competition between groups have survived, and have tended to become permanent types of association, receiving the sanction of society, and so to be reckoned as social institutions; others have been thrown on the rubbish heap as worthless. ”

“ The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before. ”

“ From this it appears that the association was simply an attempt to return to first principles, to plant the seeds of a new social order, founded on respect for the dignity, and sympathy with the aspirations of man. ”

“ The art of co-operation, that great engine of achievement, depends on learning through social contact how to think and feel sympathetically. Finally, there is the product of social organization. Chance meetings and temporary assemblies are of small value, though they must be noted as phenomena of association. More important are the fixed institutions that have grown out of relations continually tested by experience until they have become sanctioned by society as indispensable. ”

“ The mind to tolerate or even to make use of each other by cooperation does not compel us to admit association. Not until the feelings have been changed in force and direction, not until the crossing and clashing of many desires has neutralized opposing impulses and achieved a kind of artificial parallelism of wills, must we predicate the presence of society with all its characteristic workings.
We may regard the shaping received by the feelings and desires of the individual in the course of community life as due partly to Social Influence and partly to Social Control. ”

“ In the next place its long-established custom, of bringing men into association in pursuit of knowledge, is one which peculiarly fits it to help workmen, whose strength lies in that power of association which has covered some districts of England with a network of institutions—industrial, social, political, and religious. ”

“ Moreover, however distant the final consummation may be, there are, I think, many indications of an approximation. Nothing is more characteristic of modern society than the enormous development of the power of association for particular purposes. In former days a society had to form an independent organ, a corporation, a college, and so forth, to discharge any particular function, and the resulting organ was so distinct as to absorb the whole life of its members. ”

“ The Implications of Human Association.—Society is one word, but many things. Men associate together in all kinds of ways and for all kinds of purposes. One man is concerned in a multitude of diverse groups, in which his associates may be quite different. It often seems as if they had nothing in common except that they are modes of associated life. Within every larger social organization there are numerous minor groups: not only political subdivisions, but industrial, scientific, religious, associations. ”

“ Through this power of co-operation he created group organizations—society, the state, and government.
Today the strong assist the weak. The struggle for existence among men is not now, therefore, as it was in primitive days, a life-and-death competition for food and shelter. Individuals have come to recognize each other’s rights and to seek even their own advantage by co-operation rather than by strife. The association of individuals in the family and the community serves to preserve the weak whom a keen struggle for existence would eliminate. ”

“ But on the other hand, when a man joins a Trade Union or a religious society it is because the new association bears some sort of vital and immediate relation to his life. The most authentic interests of life are those which move men to join together voluntarily for their defence and promotion; and for the purpose of social development, the associations that grow in this fashion are at least of no less importance to the common run of men than the state. ”

“ Thus Best Society is not a fellowship of the wealthy, nor does it seek to exclude those who are not of exalted birth; but it is an association of gentle-folk, of which good form in speech, charm of manner, knowledge of the social amenities, and instinctive consideration for the feelings of others, are the credentials by which society the world over recognizes its chosen members. ”

“ If it belongs, then, to man in association, what kind or degree of association is required to develop it? Evidently nothing elaborate, because elaborate phases of society are transient and diverse, while human nature is comparatively [Pg 31] stable and universal. In short the family and neighborhood life is essential to its genesis and nothing more is. ”

“ The possibility of establishing true social relations, increased production, and the embodiment of the religious sentiment, are, if we read the signs aright, the points upon which the question of Association now hinges in the public mind. ”

“ Traditional ideas regarded the common wealth, or social organisation, as an association of families, each family being a community which was largely autonomous, and was self-contained for most of life’s purposes; hence the order and health of the commonwealth depended upon the order and efficiency of the families comprised within it. ”

“ It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects. Yet it is an association for as noble a purpose as any involved in our prior decisions.' Id., at 485-486, 85 S.Ct., at 1682. ”

“ I will give still another example of a form of association characteristic of primitive society. In modern society, social organization, including the grouping of families, is essentially based on blood relationship and on the social functions performed by each individual. ”

“ The natural or genetic social groups, however, such as the family, the community, and the nation, serve best to exhibit sociological problems. In this text we shall make particular use of the family, as the simplest and, in many ways, the most typical of all the forms of human association, to illustrate concretely the laws and principles of social development. Through the study of the simple and primary forms of association the problems of sociology can be much better attacked than through the study of society at large, or association in general. ”

“ They seem to have become too great for private funds to support and too valuable to abandon. The voluntary association seems the best form of social organization for research work in science and philosophy. ”

“ Any form of association, or social group, which may be studied, if studied from the point of view of origin and development, whether it be a family, a neighborhood group, a city, a state, a trade union, or a party, will serve to reveal many of the problems of sociology. ”

“ In the philanthropic world we no longer deal with individuals: we form a committee or association to deal with individuals or with groups of individuals. The number of associations of every kind for every purpose increases daily. Hence we must study the group.
93 XIII
THE SECRET OF PROGRESS I HAVE said that the essence of the social process is the creating of ever new values through the interplay of all the forces of life. ”

“ The enlargement of human association, on the other hand, increases sympathy and coöperation among men, and paves the way to the cultivation of the mutual respect and regard which is the basis of social virtue. ”

“ In such a society as we have described, there is a community of interest that tends to give stability to the ties of relationship. The fairly settled state of life was undoubtedly accompanied by a social organization of some sort that could properly deal with the matters of individual rights. ”

“ Good name, the ties of country, brotherhood, even oaths, and all that man holds sacred, were fallen in estimation. Such was the destiny to which a great and flourishing commercial town was subjected, where one hundred thousand industrious men had been brought together by the single tie of mutual confidence,—every one indispensable to his neighbor, yet every one distrusted and distrustful,—all attracted by the spirit of gain, and repelled from each other by fear,—all the props of society torn away, where social union was the basis of all life and all existence. ”

“ Attempts to form workingmen's associations have been made, however, among the best informed, the most moral, the most patient portion of the industrial population of the large cities. Enlightened governments, whatever their motto, will always protect these associations, because they offer a refuge to the genuinely social and religious thought of the future. ”

“ In regard to cultural associations we may note the privately endowed universities and state universities, privately organized churches and state churches, private charities and public charities. This dualism in social structure is supported by Professor Giddings on the grounds that private associations are needed for purposes of initiation, experimentation, and stimulation; and the public associations serve the useful purposes of regulation and maintenance of balance among various contending386 factors.
The highest test of social organization is the development of social personality. ”

“ In a society of which you might be a member, with a full privilege to assist in its organization, you will be better able to choose those of congenial qualities for associates than you ever can in your present position, so that your life, after a while, may be select in its chosen companions, and a great deal more so in its general social features than now. ”

“ Now if ever there was a community which needed to study the art of living, it is our American one; for at present, domestic life is so wearing and so oppressive as seriously to affect health and happiness. Whatever has been done abroad in the way of comfort and convenience can be done here; and the first neighborhood that shall set the example of dividing the tasks and burdens of life by the judicious use of the principle of association will initiate a most important step in the way of national happiness and prosperity. ”

“ The exigencies of life render it necessary that the different elements and forms of society should coöperate together for common interests. They strengthen the desire for social order, they quicken the spirit of organization. ”

“ I have already shown that men who live in ages of equality continually require to form associations in order to procure the things they covet; and, on the other hand, I have shown how great political freedom improves and diffuses the art of association. ”

“ In advanced and complex societies, however, each individual belongs to a number of groups—to a town, a factory, a school, a home, a political party, a fraternal order, a church. In complex societies these groups are united to form the whole social structure. The individual belongs to society, therefore, because he belongs to one or more of the groups composing society, and his membership in society is dependent upon his membership in a social group. ”

“ How much is left undone, for the sake of society! But let us pause a moment, and ask what society is. Is it a community of tried and trusted friends, united together by the ties of perfect love? Listen to the remarks of those, even of your own family, who return from the evening party, or the morning call. Is it a community of beings with whom mind is all in all, and intellectual improvement the purpose for which they meet? Observe the preparations that are made—the dress, the furniture, the food, the expense that is lavished upon these. ”

“ These persons are united by community of interest into a group, or class, or interest, and, when interests come to be adjusted, the interests of this group will undoubtedly be limited by those of other groups. ”

“ We speak no less for the whole associative movement in this country than for ourselves when we beseech our friends who are looking upon our operations not to judge of our principles or our purposes by any immediate results which they may have witnessed. The question is often asked of us whether our present mode of life answers our expectations—whether Association is found to be valuable in practice as it seems to be correct in theory, and the like. But all such inquiries betray an ignorance of the actual condition of the enterprise. ”