Social relationship

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The final set of relationships to be investigated is that which exists between the individual man and his fellow-men; and here the field of moral study opens to its widest dimensions. These social relationships are varied, numerous, and highly complicated by intermixture. It might be supposed that we should have to divide them into two principal groups, embracing—1. Such relations as exist between man and man individually ”

“ They have more and more become social questions, questions with regard to the relations of human beings to one another,—not merely their legal relations, but their moral and spiritual relations to one another. ”

“ For the family only represents one aspect, however important an aspect, of a human being's functions and activities. He cannot, she cannot, be divorced from the life of the social group, and a life is beautiful and ideal, or the reverse, only when we have taken into our consideration the social as well as the family relationship. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When social relations, applicable to mental or worldly pleasures, are alone involved, there are no longer distinctions of classes, or contests; differences of situation and opinion cease to exist; we have no thought but to enjoy and contribute in common our mutual possessions, [110] pretensions, and recommendations. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 world is indeed there in the background. But it is there as embodiment of Life, and not merely as the object of discrimination. It is a world with which we stand in Social Relations. Its life cooperates with ours. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nevertheless, as the supports of life, and the pure sense agreeables and exemptions, come to us in great part through the medium of fellow-beings, the value of the social regards receives from this cause an enormous augmentation, and, in the total, counts for one paramount object of human solicitude. ”

“ Whether social philosophers think it desirable or not, it is out of the question to go back to status or to the sentimental relations which once united baron and retainer, master and servant, teacher and pupil, comrade and comrade. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Otherwise, as we have pointed out, the conflicts in the acquirement of habit and character on the part of individuals would be so great that there would be no possibility of their working together harmoniously in a common social life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But with culture, with development of mind and spirit, with the desire to adhere truly to society's laws and regard as inviolable the rights of others, there comes a new understanding of human relationship. Where once everything seemed narrow and selfish, one now sees love and beauty and helpfulness. Instead of harsh words and unkind glances, there are words of cheer and encouragement, smiles of friendliness and understanding. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The society, we may say without hesitation, in which the reciprocal duties of husbands and wives, parents and children, are instinctively recognised and habitually observed, has, so far, secured the most deeply-seated and essential condition of happiness and virtue ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whenever we ask how our lives are to be directed, what are to be the terms on which we form our most intimate ties, whom we are to support or suppress, how we are to win respect or incur contempt, we are profoundly affected by the social relations in which we are placed at our birth, and the corresponding beliefs or prejudices which we have unconsciously imbibed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mankind, the permutation of men, the associations of men, in which there is reciprocal modification of the association by its components, and of the components by the association—men in social reciprocity, this is the last and highest stage of experience which our observation discovers, and this consummate reality of associated human life, in which the career of individuals is made or marred, forms the setting, to interpret and to be interpreted by all the included particulars which special knowledge accumulates. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And yet I feel sure that the social side is no less genuine in its claims upon us than any other. It seems to me that I might interest myself socially, but I am puzzled by the intricacies of the situation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The proper social relations of boys and girls, men and women, is one of the best ways of developing the social side of our lives, of improving the mind and strengthening our moral natures. God has made us social beings. ”

“ In regard to the social principle. They are social beings. There are among them those great impulses of our nature, general love for society, and attachment to the sexes, out of which arise the affection of husband and wife, the love of parents to children, and children to parents, and all the various modifications of affection, resulting from collateral and more distant relationships. ”

“ The due subordination of self to others in certain relations, and of others to self in relations not less important, which is found in all such gatherings on a small scale and of comparatively uniform character—as in the passengers on an ocean-steamship, the members of a company of travelers, the fellows of a scientific expedition, or even a pleasure-party—is what is necessary for the well-being of the body social ”

“ First of all, it is necessary to decide what one's personal idea of position is, whether this word suggests merely a social one, comprising a large or an exclusive acquaintance and leadership in social gaiety, or position established upon the foundation of communal consequence, which may, or may not, include great social gaiety. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The social sentiment then takes on a new character, which varies with different persons. In the strong, it becomes the pleasure of generosity; among equals, frank and cordial friendship; in the weak, the pleasure of admiration and gratitude. ”

“ 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. ”