Social connection

“ The terminology of relationship is only a specially favourable example by means of which to show the value of an attitude towards, and mode of treatment of, social facts which hold good, though less conspicuously, throughout the whole field of sociology. In social, as in all other kinds of human activity, psychological factors must have an essential part. I have myself in these lectures pointed to psychological considerations as elements in the problems with which the sociologist has to deal. ”

“ To this we may draw to meet him many men who could not be brought together at a late-hour, full-dress, evening entertainment. Authors, artists, clergymen, lawyers, statesmen, editors, doctors and capitalists, as well-237- as cultivated society women, financiers and philosophers, can all be brought together in easy and friendly social intercourse. ”

“ Each individual would thus have the stereotype of his effective social life cast; each social being would have his effective life formulated, if one may so speak, by relation, always by relations, nothing but by relations—to that of all the rest, but in figures, and yet again, in nothing but figures. ”

“ Here a word must be said about the subjective aspect of society, which, in its objective aspect, as we have seen, is merely the struggle and process of adjustment. What is the relation of adjustment to sympathy and to understanding, to communication and to concerted purpose, to the evolution of a social constraint through which the community controls and shapes the individual, to cooperation and to social organization? ”

“ The Working of the Social Mind.—Conversation in the group develops a common purpose. The two men are conscious of common desires and interests, or through a conflict of ideas the will of one subordinates the will of the other, and under the control of the joint purpose, which is now the social mind, they move toward one goal. This goal soon appears to be the objective point of a larger social mind, for other men and boys are converging in the same direction. ”

“ Is it a community who even love to meet, and who really enjoy the social hours they spend together? Ask them in what mood or temper they enter upon the fatigues of the evening, or how often they wish that some event would occur to render their presence unnecessary. ”

“ Let us look then at life just as it is. Here we find ourselves involved with one another in the most complex relations—economic, political, social, domestic, and the rest; and about and in these relations centres the interest of our life, whether it be pleasurable or painful, empty or full, or whatever its character. ”

“ Oh, we are going a long way with these Socialists, we are going to discover a new world of social relationships—and then, and then, like a mighty wave; will flow in upon us a renewed and more wonderful sense of the worth of the individual human soul. ”

“ All that was pronounced “good,” in man, in “the beginning” is innate in human nature. Social life and social relations are the life school in which this “good”-ness can be educed, strengthened, matured, in the individual. ”

“ Surely they are a motley lot, are my friends and acquaintances; they are as varied as humanity itself. So they represent to me all the moods and tenses of humanity, all its personal, social and industrial problems. ”

“ I have always felt an aversion from this so-called life of society, which has for its object the cultivation of social relationships. Is there anything more terrible than a “call”? It affords an occasion for the exchange of the most threadbare commonplaces. ”

“ This relation, in which the mutual rendering of services is unforced and neither individual subordinated, becomes the predominant relation throughout society, in proportion as the industrial activities predominate. Daily determining the thoughts and sentiments, daily disciplining all in asserting their own claims, while forcing them to recognize the correlative claims of others, it produces social units whose mental structures and habits mould social arrangements into corresponding forms. ”

“ Society like the kingdom of God is within us. Within us, within each of us, and yet greater than the thoughts and understandings of any of us. For the social thoughts and feelings and willings of each, the socialised mind of each, with the complex scheme of his relation to the social world, is no mere reproduction of the social thoughts and feelings and willings of the rest. ”

“ Here were people of all sorts talking about things that were interesting, that revealed to her things that she had never dreamed of before with regard to the vital common interests of persons whom she had always thought unlike herself, so that the community of the human heart was revealed to her, the singleness of human life. ”

“ We may extend the social circle in which we move—a circle perhaps narrowed and restricted through circumstances beyond our control—by making intimate acquaintances, perhaps even close friends, among a society long departed, but which, when we have once learnt the trick of it, it rests with us to revive. ”

“ Man and His Social Relations.—A study of society starts with the obvious fact that human beings live together. The hermit is abnormal. However far back we go in the process of human evolution we find the existence of social relations, and sociability seems a quality ingrained in human nature. Every individual has his own personality that belongs to him apart from every other individual, but the perpetuation and development of that personality is dependent on relations with other personalities and with the physical environment which limits his activity. ”

“ When perverted, it forms attachments for the low, vulgar, or vicious, and leads to bad company. Adapted to man’s [Pg 57] requisition for concert of action, co-partnership, combination, and community of feeling and interest, and is a leading element of his social relations. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our social intercourse, as commonly managed, is a mere semblance of the reality sought. What is it that we want? Some sympathetic converse with our fellow-creatures: some converse that shall not be mere dead words, but the vehicle of living thoughts and feelings—converse in which the eyes and the face shall speak, and the tones of the voice be full of meaning—converse which shall make us feel no longer alone, but shall draw us closer to another, and double our own emotions by adding another's to them. ”

“ I cut it out of the paper afterwards—this is it, word for word:
"You who believe yourselves to be interested in social work, ask yourselves what it is that you are interested in really. I will tell you. Well, whether you know it or not, fundamentally what you care about is PEOPLE. Let us say it in a better way. It is FOLKS."
I never took my eyes off her face after that. For "folks" is a word I know. Better than any other word in the language, I know that word "folks." ”

“ They are the acts that have taken place because of association. The individual would not greet himself or shake hands with himself, or stop to talk with himself. They are dependent upon the presence of more than one person; they are phenomena of the group. Why do they shake hands and talk? First, because they feel alike and think alike, and sympathy and like-mindedness seek expression in gesture and language, and, secondly, because their mode of action is under the control of a social custom that directs specific acts. ”

“ Scientific study of the relation which each individual bears to the whole race is a continual stimulus to social sympathy. Without a theory of society, it is impossible to keep this relation distinctly and constantly in view. ”

“ They are thereby transformed into desires and purposes, which, since they implicate a common or mutually understood meaning, present new ties, converting a conjoint activity into a community of interest and endeavor. Thus there is generated what, metaphorically, may be termed a general will and social consciousness: desire and choice on the part of individuals in behalf of activities that, by means of symbols, are communicable and shared by all concerned. ”

“ At the same time, the relations of the individual to the group, relations which the general loosening of social ties was rendering sharply distinct, became the great questions to which philosophy addressed itself. ”

“ Upon this point of less time being devoted to writing and more time to cultivating social relations with the people, it is very easy for us here, no doubt, to say you ought to cultivate social relations. ”

“ Society, the special field for the cultivation of manners, would soon be sterile soil were it not abandoned during lenten intervals and summers in the country. After meeting a multitude of people and being obliged to adjust ourselves to only such matters as all can understand, what a relief it is to be in the open fields, social conventions dropped, responsibilities forgotten, and no regard for others marking our words, acts, or dress! ”

“ As a matter of fact, there is no stage of development where the feelings are net greatly modified. In view of the discovery that incipient social life often consists, not in working together or mutual help, but in play and festivity, we might well assert that the influence of group life on the likings, aversions and desires is more potent and pervasive than its influence on activities. ”

“ In the multiplied relations with society he had contracted that ease of intercourse which tends so essentially to conciliate the kind affections.
Hence, though always listened to with profound respect when in the discharge of professional duties, whether as a teacher or a clergyman, yet the sphere of his greatest usefulness was the social circle, and the familiar intercourse which he maintained with the people of his own persuasion. ”

“ A common purpose, the same society, the participation of the same amusements and pleasures, facilitate the formation of many interesting connexions. The opportunities of mutual intercourse are numerous: the social meetings are not hampered by the trammels of ceremony, and we readily acknowledge and enjoy mental and social talents wherever we meet with them. ”

“ It is socially convenient, for purely practical reasons, to regard my fellow as a being whose mind shall be wholly independent, as to its inner being, of my own knowledge about my fellow. This view of the social relation is indeed suggested by well-known experiences, but in its ideally extreme forms, it is warranted by no experience, and is actually contradicted by every case of the communication of mind with mind. ”

“ It is capable of presenting life as a connected whole and of showing the interplay of influences, the action of values on attitudes. It can reveal the predominant wishes in different temperaments, the incidents constituting turning points in life, the processes of sublimation or transfer of interest from one field to another, the effect of other personalities in defining situations and the influence of social organizations like the family, the school, the acquaintance group, in forming the different patterns of life-organization. ”

“ To come into contact with the social side of people is broadening; it is educative. "To know people," says a writer, "you must see them at play." Social life can be made a study at the same time that it is made a pleasure. ”

“ Practically, too, the institution manifests a threefold improvement over the world at large, corresponding to these three motives. In consequence of the first, the companionship, the personal intercourse, the social bearing, are of a marked and very superior character. There may possibly to some minds, long accustomed to other modes, appear a want of homeness and of the private fireside; but all observers must acknowledge a brotherly and softening condition, highly conducive to the permanent and pleasant growth of all the better human qualities. ”

“ We observe two broadly contrasted types of human life—the isolated, admitting only of the family, and the associated. Between these types of life, and between the men and women who lead them, are certain great contrasts that must be due to the presence or absence of association. By the difference between the lone man and the social man, between the associated state and the life of single units or pairs, we can gauge the sociologic problem. The changes that attend association afford the best evidence that there exists a source of influence worthy of most zealous study. ”

“ In social relations, in opportunities for culture, in friendships formed, in means of influence, in popular estimation, and even in temporal support, few positions in life have higher advantages or more agreeable surroundings. ”

“ It is our relations to others, that and the influence of our actions upon others, combined with the possibility of our natures being affected by the praise or censure of the social body to which we belong, which sets up the fact of responsibility. Conduct creates a social reaction, good or bad, agreeable or disagreeable, and the reacting judgment of society awakens in each of us a consciousness of responsibility, more or less acute, and more or less drastic, to society at large. ”

“ Upon such a foundation are built the earliest alliances: the object of which is the mutual protection and safety from threatening misfortunes, and the welfare of each individual. And thus the social instinct develops from pleasure. ”