Social relations

“ If [113] man’s social nature is to find its correlate, the race must be so completely one, so compact and contiguous in the spirit of fraternity and good will, as to make it possible for each man to share in the work, thought, and virtue of all men. Individuals must be gathered into the network of social relations, so that, instead of separate and isolated units, they shall be known as farmers, merchants, blacksmiths, mechanics, shoemakers, lawyers, doctors, editors, and ministers. The calling of each must relate to the well-being of all. ”

“ The modification of men's moral natures, caused by the continuous discipline of social life, which adapts them more and more to social relations, is therefore the chief proximate cause of social progress. ”

“ Where do we get our notions of love, freedom, justice, and the like which we are ever applying to social institutions? Not from abstract philosophy, surely, but from the actual life of simple and widespread forms of society, like the family or the play-group. In these relations mankind realizes itself, gratifies its primary needs, in a fairly satisfactory manner, and from the experience forms standards of what it is to expect from more elaborate association. ”

“ There has got to be some basis on which they can do business with one another—some stability. The spoils must be divided evenly. Good morals, like good manners, are a necessity in our social relations. ”

“ 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 any one acknowledges a moral governor of the world; perceives that domestic and social relations are perpetually operating and seem intended to operate, to retain and direct men in the path of duty ”

“ 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. ”

“ When, in the domestic relations, we meet with such varieties of law, of custom, of sentiment, of belief, thus indicated by a few examples which might be indefinitely multiplied, it may be imagined how multitudinous are the seeming incongruities presented among the social relations at large. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By learning the social relations and understanding their source, they can profit and prepare to change the industrial structure of society, which as a matter of course, will determine also the changes in the social and political character of the system which is bound to be inaugurated. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And this society is not a mere set of wealthy exclusives banded together against the rest of the world; it comprehends everybody.
One sees in the streets abundant evidence of these conditions of social relationship. ”

“ In the preceding chapters I have discussed the public and social relations of classes, and those social topics in which groups of persons are considered as groups or classes, without regard to personal merits or demerits. I have relegated all charitable work to the domain of private relations, where personal acquaintance and personal estimates may furnish the proper limitations and guarantees. A man who had no sympathies and no sentiments would be a very poor creature ”

“ Constant Factors in Social Phenomena.—Our study of social life has made it plain that it is a complex affair, but it has been possible to classify society in certain groups, to follow the gradual extension of relations from small groups to large, and to take note of the numerous activities and interests that enter into contemporary group life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Consciously or not they have still wider relations in a world life that is continually growing in social content. Each of these groups reveals the same fundamental characteristics, but each has its peculiar forms and its dominant energies; each has its perplexing problems and each its possibilities of greater good. ”

“ That discipline had, as has already been observed, increased men's capacity for fruitful association one with another. It had stimulated a social relationship much superior to the prevailing political relationship. ”

“ The industrial, economic, domestic, civil, military, aesthetic, moral, religious, and intellectual condition of each community, is given in a systematic way, which brings out the relations of these social factors ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have now seen, gentlemen, two periods of the world, each of which is dominated by the ruling idea of a particular class of the community which impresses its own principle on all the social arrangements of its time. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Business intercourse we cannot avoid; but we seek it for other ends than pleasure; social intercourse is that which we pursue for enjoyment only,—or, at least, pretend to. Hence, we call it specifically “Society;” and we distinguish it into certain fanciful grades, as “good society,” “the best society,” and “high life.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These are the bases of civil and polite society; namely, manners, conversation, lucrative labor, and public action, whether political, or in the leading of social institutions. We have much to regret, much to [Pg 95] mend, in our society; but I believe that with all liberal and hopeful men there is a firm faith in the beneficent results which we really enjoy; that intelligence, manly enterprise, good education, virtuous life, and elegant manners have been and are found here, and, we hope, in the next generation will still more abound. ”

“ It points the way to an end of all bitterness and contention. It augurs an early return to the harmonious relations of those who earn and those who pay wages, relations which are essential to the progress and prosperity of any community. ”

“ The very sacredness of the relation in which two men stand to one another when one of them rescues the other from vice separates that relation from any connection with the work of the social busybody, the professional philanthropist, and the empirical legislator. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There will be two main methods to this end: first, to produce social institutions under which the interests of different individuals or groups conflict as little as possible; second, to educate individuals in such a way that their desires can be harmonised with each other and with the desires of their neighbours. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a situation in which millions voluntarily place themselves—a situation of vast and complicated responsibilities—involving numerous relationships and duties of the highest imaginable importance, upon which depend not only the domestic and social happiness of individuals, but the moral condition of whole communities and nations. ”

“ Investigates, in an orderly, scientific manner, the principles of association, and whatever relates to the interests and improvement of men in communities. It has its basis in psychology, as that science of the soul reveals most clearly the elements of a social nature. By instinctive longings for sympathy and fellowship, men are drawn together, and readily consent to the [381] restraints of society, whose earlier tacit agreements and maxims are at length formulated into rules and laws for their better government. ”

“ Beyond all question, as thus witnessed in the universal moral consciousness, these relations from the most general, that of man to man, down through all special connections, as between parents and children, husband and wife, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, rulers and citizens, employer and employé, rich and poor, capable and helpless, and all the other human interrelations in their thousands of diversified forms, do determine and impose both general and specific duties. ”

“ The word social, then, is much broader than the words industrial, political, moral, religious, and embraces them all; that is, social phenomena are all phenomena which involve the interaction of two or more individuals. The word social, then, includes the economic, political, moral, religious, etc., and must not be thought of as something set in opposition to, for instance, the industrial or the political.
Society and its Products.—Beneath all the forms and processes of human society lies the fact of association itself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Among men, in spite of the occasional existence of the petty professional jealousies and antagonism, we find, viewing society as a whole, that common interests, and above all common labours, are the most potent means of bringing them into close and friendly relations ”

“ It forced men into the social state; made social organization inevitable; and has developed the social sentiments. It has stimulated to progressive improvements in production, and to increased skill and intelligence. It is daily thrusting us into closer contact and more mutually-dependent relationships. ”

“ 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. ”