Social pressure

“ The agent relied on to dispense the punishments and rewards just described, is public feeling. To many it will seem going too far to expect from the sentiments that fitfully agitate the amorphous mass of unreflective people a rational pressure steadily urging the individual away from his egoistic aims in the direction of the social welfare. The public it will be said, has all manner of likes and dislikes, doubtfuUest of which is its liking for genuine social service and its dislike of brazen egoism. ”

“ But in society the rancorous contention which jarring interests daily create, the heavy yoke which subordination is continually imposing, “the oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,” and the shocks which reason and good sense hourly receive from fools in power, and insolent superiors, spread torrents of misery over human life, embitter the happiness of their more worthy though inferior fellow-creatures, poison all pleasure, break through social order, spread thorns in the paths of virtue, and render the world a vale of tears. ”

“ But according to every hypothesis as to the law, and the temptations and pressures towards vice, here are the individuals who, of all the society, have yielded to said pressure. These are of the worst substance for enduring pressure! ”

“ Certain stages of this process will be in the nature of crisis according to the strength of the opposition encountered in the personal moral struggle, and in opposing social conditions. Nothing but calamity can forestall this progressive moral adjustment to the whole world. ”

“ There are ambitions, interests, customs, prejudices, conventionalities, and a thousand intangible forms of social force, that all react upon the individual man like so many conflicting winds and currents. ”

“ In this mood he totally disregards the laws of society and seizes every opportunity that presents itself to prey upon it and he thus becomes an anti-social being. Through all ages up to the present, society has at the cost of much effort and suffering been progressing, stage by stage, towards a higher order. ”

“ This involves a strain on both, which increases in direct proportion to our socialization, and, so far, has resulted in the ultimate destruction of the social organism acted upon by such irreconcilable forces. ”

“ He who sees in the struggle something artificial, produced by bad men, may perhaps attribute to the creator of the disturbance bad motives for this knavery, for this frivolous and malicious upsetting of social rest. ”

“ Fear in the face of the unfamiliar, anxiety in the face of the unknown, hysteria in the face of the inexperienced, subside in the reassuring warmth of familiar, known, experienced social relations. Aims are restored to the aimless, direction to the directionless, order to the disarrayed. ”

“ Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. ”

“ Those aggressive impulses inherited from the pre-social state—those tendencies to seek self-satisfaction regardless of injury to other beings, which are essential to a predatory life, constitute an anti-social force, tending ever to cause conflict and eventual separation of citizens.—Herbert Spencer, Synthetic Philosophy. ”

“ They were obliged to labour hard, yet in the intervals of work, father and son would read or discourse concerning the ills attendant on humanity, and they traced all to the social system, which made the few the tyrants of the many. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He raises the cry of the miserable and the despised, and in a masterly arraignment of commercialism, protests against social conditions, against the grinding of the faces of the poor and weak, and the self-pollution of the rich and strong, in their mad lust for place and power. ”

“ That is why when in a social aggregate the impulse of self-preservation becomes limited, inhibited, and lowered by tyranny of social commandments, society is sure to decline, degenerate, and finally dissolve ”

“ For a man who, seeing the want and misery, the ignorance and brutishness caused by unjust social institutions, sets himself to right them in so far as he has strength, there is disappointment and bitterness. ”

“ Wherever this impulse of social or political reform darts up its rill through the crusts of selfishness, scoff and dread also arise, and hang like a heavy mist above it. But the voice of the rill penetrates far enough for those who have ears to hear. ”

“ It means that society is working against rather than with the grain. Discontent, ranging from mere pique and irritability to overt violence, is Page 26 the penalty that is likely to be paid by a society the majority of whose members are chronically prevented from satisfying their normal human desires. ”

“ But the full release of all our powers—known and unknown—is contingent upon a social setting more richly human, that is to say, more spiritual in temper, and outlook, than mankind has hitherto known. This social setting will come when we make up our minds to break the tyranny of the economic motive and to deliver life from the infamous despotism of things. ”

“ But it is claimed in the case of all these societies for intimidation and cruelty that the main motive is something higher and better than this. A state of danger, social indiscipline, and slackness is alleged ”

“ He sinks lower and lower until, overcome by circumstances, he is at the bottom of the social ladder,—at once a menace and a disgrace to the city. Instead of blaming and condemning him, poor fellow, we should look at the circumstances that made him what he is, and endeavor to remedy them. ”

“ Society is doomed to an ignominious death as soon as the connective tissue of institutions and the ossified material of officialdom with its rank growth of unyielding red tape and formalism begin to spread, choking, and strangling the free, personal life of the individual. ”

“ Such, for example, are the progress of ``statism,'' the diminution of the power of the bourgeoisie, the increasing activity of financiers, the conflict of the classes, the vanishing of the old social constraints, and the degradation of morality.
All these effects are displayed in a general insubordination and anarchy. The son revolts against the father, the employee against his patron, the soldier against his officers. Discontent, hatred, and envy reign throughout.
A social movement which continues is necessarily like a machine in movement which accelerates its motion. ”

“ For this degradation of character we are bound to hold this new social force in a measure responsible, even though it has so operated because of its inherent qualities and in no material respect through conscious cynicism or viciousness ”

“ This looks with suspicion and antipathy on the young forces which overflow around it, at home and abroad; growing nations and classes, all the passionate awkward attempts at social and moral improvement. ”

“ You who are called the general public; farmer, professional man, small businessman, white collar worker, laborer, widow, orphan, old person; those who pinched penny by penny to accumulate a little nest egg, those who mortgaged your homes, those who saved it at extreme sacrifices, denying yourselves certain luxuries or necessities, to the point of avarice—you have listened to the evil persuasion of high pressure. ”

“ All about us are men and women who have become unhappy in regard to their attitude toward the social order itself; toward the dreary round of uninteresting work, the pleasures narrowed down to those of appetite, the declining consciousness of brain power, and the lack of mental food which characterizes the lot of the large proportion of their fellow-citizens. ”

“ This moral development is retarded, however, not only by the degree of militancy yet existing, but also by the necessity for a certain degree of bluntness of feeling, too great sensitiveness to the suffering of others entailing, while the pressure of population is as great as at present, a misery that would make life intolerable. ”

“ There is conflict between the lower and higher impulses in the human mind, conflict between selfish ambition and the welfare of the group, conflict among individuals and races for a place in the sun. It is conceivable that the baser impulses that provoke much social conflict may give way to more rational and altruistic purpose, but it is difficult to see how all friction can be avoided in social relations. ”

“ Social problems, whether robed in dithyrambic form or clad in offensive rags, are unable to force upon society reforms which are laid down in names unless society has become ready to assimilate them; otherwise they upset society, agitate it, and throw it back on reaction. ”

“ A fermentation of social discontent—bred by the philosophy of the times, by the glaring disparity between the ruling class and the working people, the latters’ distrust of the morals and the assumed authority of the former, by the teachings of freemasonry and the trades unions—was slowly gathering momentum. ”

“ Now, the difficulties that lie in the way of humanity in its complex and toilsome journey through the coming centuries towards this Great State are fundamentally difficulties of adaptation and adjustment. To no conceivable social state is man inherently fitted: he is a creature of jealousy and 141suspicion, unstable, restless, acquisitive, aggressive, intractable, and of a most subtle and nimble dishonesty. ”

“ By that inevitable law of action and reaction which prevails alike in moral and social as in physical phenomena, the community which has so large a portion of its members in a condition of ignorance and brutality, must, throughout its whole body, partake of the degradation which exists within it, and must be affected, by the very contact, in all its feelings, sentiments, and purposes, through the gross and ignorant passions which such an association cannot fail to arouse. ”

“ As experience of the social effects of action ripens, and as the social conscience is awakened, the conception of injury is widened and insight into its causes is deepened. The area of restraint is therefore increased. ”

“ But the example is to be admitted to be equivocal. A more decisive argument is afforded by a consideration of the universal connexion of ferocity of manners, and a contempt of social ties, with the contempt of human life. ”

“ But it is one thing to face seriously the manifold problems of reconstruction of our social relations, and it is quite another thing to persuade oneself that all these entangled problems have but one imaginary neck which is waiting to be cut with a single stroke of the sword of revolution in the hands of "the people." Hundreds of times I have heard radicals, while discussing certain evils of present society, say, "All these things are but symptoms, effects ”

“ What, then, must have been the ravages of this social malady in a time when all individuals, however inferior their intelligence, however destitute of all suitable preparation, were summoned indiscriminately and by the most energetic modes of appeal to decide day by day, with the most deplorable levity, and without guidance or check of any kind, the most fundamental questions of politics! ”

“ They will commit abuse, if they can and dare, just as others have done. The reason for the excesses of the old governing classes lies in the vices and passions of human nature—cupidity, lust, vindictiveness, ambition, and vanity. ”

“ But there are others, on the contrary, who think, who study and, looking about them, discover social iniquities. Is it their fault if they see clearly and suffer at seeing others suffer? Then they throw themselves into the struggle, and make themselves the bearers of the popular claims. ”

“ We put the emphasis on the peculiar aggravation of that circumstance in this part of the world in this and recent times, by the adventitious effect of some dreadful disorder of the social economy, in consequence of which the utmost exertions of the body and mind together but barely suffice in so many cases, in some hardly do suffice, for the mere protraction of life; comfortable life being altogether out of the question. ”

“ What respective shares in checking impulsiveness are taken by the feelings which the social state fosters—such as the fear of surrounding individuals, the instinct of sociality, the desire to accumulate property, the sympathetic feelings, the sentiment of justice? These, which require a social environment for their development, all of them involve imaginations of consequences more or less distant ”

“ Everywhere we perceive the same symptoms of social fermentation, general dissatisfaction and decomposition. Altho these movements differ outwardly, according to the degree of development and the character of the population, they all are identical in character. Profound social antagonism is the underlying cause. ”

“ But the very pressure of these limitations has been developing new functions in us—a conscience restive under false standards, a capacity for wider sympathies—the wings of the grub, destined to burst the chrysalis of worn-out prejudices, regulations, legislations, and despotisms; to spread out into new spaces where there shall be development and happiness. ”

“ The social instinct in us took alarm some years ago. Outside of parties it has worked out into humanitarian feeling, and is ripening into purpose. The workman is likely for some decades [52] to fashion for us the spirit of our politics and the ends sought by our statesmanship. ”

“ It may be sublimated—that is, become a factor coordinated intelligently with others in a continuing course of action. Thus a gust of anger may, because of its dynamic incorporation into disposition, be converted into an abiding conviction of social injustice to be remedied, and furnish the dynamic to carry the conviction into execution. ”