Social function

“ The conception of education as a social process and function has no definite meaning until we define the kind of society we have in mind. ”

“ That which, when we become capable of reflection, we term conscience, consists in pleasure in forms of action furthering the welfare of society—forms gradually moulded to habit with the development of social relations,—and in a corresponding pain at the realization of having failed of such action; the knowledge of the demand, by society as a whole or by a part of society, of action in accord with the general welfare, and the sense of the justice of this demand, constituting the feeling of obligation and duty. ”

“ Reviewing the development in society of the conditions for the satisfaction of the individual will to live, and to live in the best way conceivable, we see in the progress of moral ideas the progress of discovery of the most reasonable manner of ordering the life of the individual and the form of social institutions under the contemporary environment. ”

“ What is the value, of present-day knowledge if not to stimulate the conscious group, through the individual perhaps, but the group finally, to better use of its powers and opportunities toward a higher form of social life? ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ SOCIAL CONTROL.
Even when sociology outgrows the stage of vealiness, so that the question "What is society?" can be relegated from the beginning of a text-book to the end, we shall still feel the need of expressing in a few words the characteristics that mark off a true society from all manner of aggregates and combinations of men. ”

“ Even at the present time, however, it is possible to support sociological arguments by means of considerations provided by psychological motives, and the assistance thus rendered to sociology will become far greater as the science of social psychology advances. ”

“ The success or failure of this effort to assure individual adjustment to the social norm and conformity to its practices varies with the prosilitizing enthusiasm of the society and with the ration of adaptability and self-consciousness of its individual members. ”

“ Or is there perhaps a third and a better possibility that for the very reason that they are changing its form they are increasing its possibilities for social usefulness and for the enrichment of individual lives? ”

“ We are now in a position to describe how man came by that social modus vivendi which we call utility, and define as all that makes for the continued existence and progressive welfare of the community. Utility is scientifically "the result of the conflict of individual rights, with survival of the fittest." ”

“ The different economic, social, and moral questions connected with these various conditions, the illustrations of which could be multiplied indefinitely, may be, generally are, decided by each individual without reference to society at large. ”

“ SOCIAL WILL AND SOCIAL HABITS.—Within the province of the social will fall what may not inaptly be called the habits of a community—ways of acting acquired largely without premeditation and followed to a great extent through mere inertia. The province of the social will is a broad one. Deliberate choices; those half-conscious choices analogous to the unheeded expressions of preference which fill the days of the individual; impulses and tendencies which scarcely emerge into the light—all are expressions of the social will. ”

“ The social problem—if for simplicity we may speak as though social tasks were one—is how to socialize ourselves to such degree that, without bankrupting all, each may have a secure lien upon a minimum share of nature's endowment for satisfying common human wants. ”

“ A certain social sense is, therefore, the foundation upon which all concerted action rests; and this, permeating the character and winning conformity in the life, produces a social order which is at once the criterion of civilization and the source of its power. ”

“ Every one of our actions, whether we wish it or not, exercises some influence on other human beings in the social community in which we live. By our conduct we help to uphold or undermine the principles on which the various social institutions are based ”

“ A better working theory, and one that is less likely to lead to undemocratic practices, is the one that sees in the individual the unit, and in the family relation one of the most important means for promoting his happiness and social usefulness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From history and philosophy and custom, we pass, therefore, to the force which in our day and generation is becoming the greatest of them all, the power of social justice which finds its outlet and expression in the method of sociology.... ”

“ Has man individual traits, physical and mental, sufficiently strong to stand the strain of a highly complex social order? It will depend upon the strength of his moral character, mental traits, and physical resistance, and whether justice among men shall prevail, manifested in humane and sound social action. Future progress will depend upon a clearness of vision, a unity of thought, the standardization of the objectives of social achievement, and, moreover, an elevation of human conduct. ”

“ Everything now which is present in the individuals—the immediate concrete locations of all historical actuality—in the nature of impulse, interest, purpose, inclination, psychical adaptability, and movement of such sort that thereupon or therefrom occurs influence upon others, or the reception of influence from them—all this I designate as the content or the material of socialization. In and of themselves, these materials with which life is filled, these motivations which impel it, are not social in their nature. ”

“ Society corresponds better to its definition in proportion as it creates itself." This consideration of the developing social consciousness will determine the categories which we are to apply to the explanation of its movements. ”

“ But, as I have pointed out in the Introduction to my Social Psychology, those who approached these problems were generally stimulated to do so by their interest in questions of right and wrong, in questions of norms and standards of conduct, the urgency of which demanded immediate answers for the practical guidance of human life in all its spheres of activity, for the shaping of laws, institutions, governments, and associations of every kind ”

“ On the other hand we are driven, by equally obvious empirical considerations, to interpret the social world as a realm of conscious voluntary processes, which occur because somebody finds it worth while that they should occur. ”

“ The social impulse is also positively defined by the law of perfect internal harmony, and thus we arrive at the peculiar vocation of man in Society. All the individuals who compose the human race differ from each other ”

“ Ultimate moral motives and forces are nothing more or less than social intelligence—the power of observing and comprehending social situations,—and social power—trained capacities of control—at work in the service of social interest and aims. ”

“ We remind our young people from time to time that conventions established in sophisticated society have usually a sound basis in social experience, and the cultivation of the minor morals of good manners develops consideration for others. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Thus far, then, the result of our inquiries shows, that man is destined for Society; among the capacities which, according to his vocation as laid down in our former lecture, he is destined to improve and perfect, there is also the social capacity.
This destination of man for Society in the abstract, although arising out of the innermost and purest elements of human nature, is yet, as a mere impulse, subordinate to the highest law of constant internal harmony, or the moral law, and by it must be still further defined and brought under a strict rule. ”

“ These are the social interests that dominate his activity. Mankind has risen from the brute by the process that leads the individual up from the low level of life moulded by primitive desires to the high plane of a life directed by the broad interests of society at large. It is the task of education [347] to reveal this process, and to provide the stimuli that are needed for its continuance. ”

“ We have seen that the forms under which they appear are not independent of the degree and kind of the development of the society we may happen to be contemplating. [Footnote: See chapter ii.] And we have realized that man is born into a world of ready-made duties which are literally forced upon his attention. He finds himself a member of a family, somebody's neighbor, a resident in a town or village, allotted to a social class, an employer or an employee, a citizen of a state. ”

“ The guiding principle throughout the process is the conception of their own good, comprehending, as it does, not only ease, personal comfort, and gratification of the various appetites and desires, which, in the early stages of society, are the preponderating considerations, but also those higher constituents of welfare, both individual and social, which attain an ever-increasing importance as society advances, such as are the development of the moral, the intellectual, and the aesthetic faculties ”

“ The object of the forms according to which human society is administered, is the happiness of the individuals composing the communities which they regard, and these forms are perfect or imperfect in proportion to the degree in which they promote this end.
This object is not merely the quantity of happiness enjoyed by individuals as sensitive beings, but the mode in which it should be distributed among them as social beings. ”

“ Their social units they endow with religious beliefs, moral distinctions, a full-fledged ethical code, a sense of honor and self-respect, various ideals and valuations of conduct, and Heaven knows what besides—all of which, far from being instinctive, are products of education, and by their presence give signal proof that the more delicate devices of control have done their work so well that the cruder and more vigorous machinery need not be put into motion. ”

“ There is a realm of Social Objectivity, a realm of organization, activity, purpose and power, not physical in character, not mechanical in nature, which is set in opposition to individual will, purpose, power, and activity. How is the individual related to this objective social world? ”

“ I pointed out an important law in Social Psychology, namely, that greatness of individuality is inversely proportional to the mass of the social aggregate. ”

“ In this way, then, it may be possible to prove the general utility, for the present, of those actions, which in our society are both generally recognized as duties and generally practised; but it seems very doubtful whether a conclusive case can be established for any proposed change in social custom, without an independent investigation of what things are good or bad in themselves. ”

“ Each social formation, through each of its material activities, exerts its influence upon the civic whole; and each of its ideas and ideals wins also its place and power. ”

“ It treats of the relation of social psychology to political science, jurisprudence, economics, history and sociology, analyzing the psychological assumptions underlying the behavior of men living in social relations. ”

“ They arise, as the individual's conception of the society on the well-being of which his own depends, and of the constituents of that well-being, becomes wider and fuller; and they are embodied in the laws, institutions, and social expectation, which make conventional morality. This embodiment, again, constitutes the moral progress of mankind. This progress, however, is only a moral progress in so far as it tends to bring about the harmony of will and reason, in the only form in which it can really exist, viz. ”

“ That means that every community, through the very character of the environment which it imposes upon the individuals that compose it, tends to determine the personal traits as it does determine the language, the vocation, social values, and, eventually, the personal opinions, of the individuals who compose it. ”