Introduction to the Science of Sociology Part 33

[83] Adapted from P. Chalmers Mitch.e.l.l, _The Childhood of Animals_, pp.

204-21. (Frederick A. Stokes & Co., 1912.)

[84] Adapted from Eugenius Warming, _Oecology of Plants_, pp. 12-13, 91-95. (Oxford University Press, 1909.)

[85] Adapted from William E. Wheeler, _Ants, Their Structure, Development, and Behavior_, pp. 5-7. (Columbia University Press, 1910.)

[86] From John Dewey, _Democracy and Education_, pp. 1-7. (Published by The Macmillan Co., 1916. Reprinted by permission.)

[87] From Robert E. Park, _Principles of Human Behavior_, pp. 1-9. (The Zalaz Corporation, 1915.)

[88] Adapted from L. T. Hobhouse, _Morals in Evolution_, pp. 1-2, 10-12.

(Henry Holt & Co., 1915.)

[89] Adapted from emile Durkheim, _Elementary Forms of Religious Life_, pp. 432-37. (Allen & Unwin, 1915.)

[90] From Albion W. Small, _General Sociology_, pp. 495-97. (The University of Chicago Press, 1905.)

[91] From R. E. Park, "Education in Its Relation to the Conflict and Fusion of Cultures," in the _Publications of the American Sociological Society_, VIII (1918), 38-40.

[92] Translated from S. Sighele, _Psychologie des Sectes_, pp. 42-51.

(M. Giard et Cie., 1898.)

[93] Adapted from William E. Hocking, _Morale and Its Enemies_, pp.

3-37. (Yale University Press, 1918.)

CHAPTER IV

I. INTRODUCTION

1. Geological and Biological Conceptions of Isolation

Relations of persons with persons, and of groups with groups, may be either those of isolation or those of contact. The emphasis in this chapter is placed upon _isolation_, in the next chapter upon _contact_ in a comparison of their effects upon personal conduct and group behavior.

Absolute isolation of the person from the members of his group is unthinkable. Even biologically, two individuals of the higher animal species are the precondition to a new individual existence. In man, postnatal care by the parent for five or six years is necessary even for the physiological survival of the offspring. Not only biologically but sociologically complete isolation is a contradiction in terms.

Sociologists following Aristotle have agreed with him that human nature develops within and decays outside of social relations. Isolation, then, in the social as well as the biological sense is _relative_, not _absolute_.

The term "isolation" was first employed in anthropogeography, the study of the relation of man to his physical environment. To natural barriers, as mountains, oceans, and deserts, was attributed an influence upon the location of races and the movements of peoples and the kind and the degree of cultural contact. The nature and the extent of separation of persons and groups was considered by geographers as a reflex of the physical environment.

In biology, isolation as a factor in the evolution and the life of the species, is studied from the standpoint of the animal group more than from that of the environment. Consequently, the separation of species from each other is regarded as the outcome not only of a sheer physical impossibility of contact, but even more of other factors as differences in physical structure, in habits of life, and in the instincts of the animal groups. J. Arthur Thomson in his work on "Heredity" presents the following compact and illuminating statement of isolation as a factor in inheritance.

The only other directive evolution-factor that biologists are at all agreed about, besides selection, is isolation--a general term for all the varied ways in which the radius of possible intercrossing is narrowed. As expounded by Wagner, Weismann, Romanes, Gulick, and others, isolation takes many forms--spatial, structural, habitudinal, and psychical--and it has various results.

It tends to the segregation of species into subspecies, it makes it easier for new variations to establish themselves, it promotes prepotency, or what the breeders call "transmitting power," it fixes characters. One of the most successful breeds of cattle (Polled Angus) seems to have had its source in one farmsteading; its early history is one of close inbreeding, its prepotency is remarkable, its success from our point of view has been great. It is difficult to get secure data as to the results of isolation in nature, but Gulick's recent volume on the subject abounds in concrete ill.u.s.trations, and we seem warranted in believing that conditions of isolation have been and are of frequent occurrence.

Reibmayr has collected from human history a wealth of ill.u.s.trations of various forms of isolation, and there seems much to be said for his thesis that the establishment of a successful race or stock requires the alternation of periods of inbreeding (endogamy) in which characters are fixed, and periods of outbreeding (exogamy) in which, by the introduction of fresh blood, new variations are promoted. Perhaps the Jews may serve to ill.u.s.trate the influence of isolation in promoting stability of type and prepotency; perhaps the Americans may serve to ill.u.s.trate the variability which a mixture of different stocks tends to bring about. In historical inquiry into the difficult problem of the origin of distinct races, it seems legitimate to think of periods of "mutation"--of discontinuous sporting--which led to numerous offshoots from the main stock, of the migration of these variants into new environments where in relative isolation they became prepotent and stable.[94]

The biological use of the term "isolation" introduces a new emphasis.

Separation may be spatial, but its effects are increasingly structural and functional. Indeed, spatial isolation was a factor in the origin of species because of specialized organic adaptation to varied geographic conditions. In other words, the structure of the species, its habits of life, and its original and acquired responses, tend to isolate it from other species.

Man as an animal species in his historical development has attempted with fair success to destroy the barriers separating him from other animals. Through domestication and taming he has changed the original nature and habits of life of many animals. The dog, the companion of man, is the summit of human achievement in a.s.sociation with animals.

Nevertheless, the barriers that separate the dog and his master are insurmountable. Even if "a candidate for humanity," the dog is forever debarred from any share in human tradition and culture.

2. Isolation and Segregation

In geography, isolation denotes separation in s.p.a.ce. In sociology, the essential characteristic of isolation is found in exclusion from communication.

Geographical forms of isolation are sociologically significant in so far as they prevent communication. The isolation of the mountain whites in the southern states, even if based on spatial separation, consisted in the absence of contacts and compet.i.tion, partic.i.p.ation in the progressive currents of civilization.

Biological differences, whether physical or mental, between the different races are sociologically important to the extent to which they affect communication. Of themselves, differences in skin color between races would not prevent intercommunication of ideas. But the physical marks of racial differences have invariably become the symbols of racial solidarity and racial exclusiveness. The problems of humanity are altogether different from what they would have been were all races of one complexion as they are of one blood.

Certain physical and mental defects and differences in and of themselves tend to separate the individual from his group. The deaf-mute and the blind are deprived of normal avenues to communication. "My deafness,"

wrote Beethoven, "forces me to live in exile." The physically handicapped are frequently unable to partic.i.p.ate in certain human activities on equal terms with their fellows. Minor physical defects and marked physical variations from the normal tend to become the basis of social discrimination.

Mental differences frequently offer still greater obstacles to social contacts. The idiot and the imbecile are obviously debarred from normal communication with their intelligent a.s.sociates. The "dunce" was isolated by village ridicule and contempt long before the term "moron"

was coined, or the feeble-minded segregated in inst.i.tutions and colonies. The individual with the highest native endowments, the genius, and the talented enjoy or suffer from a more subtle type of isolation from their fellows, that is, the isolation of eminence. "The reason of isolation," says Th.o.r.eau, a lover of solitude, "is not that we love to be alone, but that we love to soar; and when we soar, the company grows thinner and thinner until there is none left."

So far, isolation as a tool of social a.n.a.lysis has been treated as an effect of geographical separation or of structural differentiation resulting in limitation of communication. Social distances are frequently based on other subtler forms of isolation.

The study of cultural differences between groups has revealed barriers quite as real and as effective as those of physical s.p.a.ce and structure.

Variations in language, folkways, mores, conventions, and ideals separate individuals and peoples from each other as widely as oceans and deserts. Communication between England and Australia is far closer and freer than between Germany and France.

Conflict groups, like sects and parties, and accommodation groups like castes and cla.s.ses depend for survival upon isolation. Free intercourse of opposing parties is always a menace to their morale. Fraternization between soldiers of contending armies, or between ministers of rival denominations is fraught with peril to the fighting efficiency of the organizations they represent. The solidarity of the group, like the integrity of the individual, implies a measure at least of isolation from other groups and persons as a necessary condition of its existence.

The life-history of any group when a.n.a.lyzed is found to incorporate within it elements of isolation as well as of social contact. Members.h.i.+p in a group makes for increasing contacts within the circle of partic.i.p.ants, but decreasing contacts with persons without. Isolation is for this reason a factor in the preservation of individuality and unity.

The _esprit de corps_ and morale of the group is in large part maintained by the fixation of attention upon certain collective representations to the exclusion of others. The memories and sentiments of the members have their source in common experiences of the past from which non-members are isolated. This natural tendency toward exclusive experiences is often reinforced by conscious emphasis upon secrecy.

Primitive and modern secret societies, sororities, and fraternities have been organized around the principle of isolation. Secrecy in a society, like reserve in an individual, protects it from a disintegrating publicity. The family has its "skeleton in the closet," social groups avoid the public "was.h.i.+ng of dirty linen"; the community banishes from consciousness, if it can, its slums, and parades its parks and boulevards. Every individual who has any personality at all maintains some region of privacy.

A morphological survey of group formation in any society discloses the fact that there are lateral as well as vertical divisions in the social structure. Groups are arranged in strata of relative superiority and inferiority. In a stratified society the separation into castes is rigid and quite unalterable. In a free society compet.i.tion tends to destroy cla.s.ses and castes. New devices come into use to keep aspiring and insurgent individuals and groups at the proper social level. If "familiarity breeds contempt" respect may be secured by reserve. In the army the prestige of the officer is largely a matter of "distance." The "divinity that doth hedge the king" is due in large part to the hedge of ceremonial separating him from his subjects. Condescension and pity, while they denote external contact, involve an a.s.sumption of spiritual eminence not to be found in consensus and sympathy. As protection against the penetration of the inner precincts of personality and the group individuality, there are the defenses of suspicion and aversion, of reticence and reserve, designed to insure the proper social distance.

3. Cla.s.sification of the Materials

The materials in the present chapter are intended to ill.u.s.trate the fact that individuality of the person and of the group is both an effect of and a cause of isolation.

The first selections under the heading "Isolation and Personal Individuality" bring out the point that the function of isolation in personal development lies not so much in sheer physical separation from other persons as in freedom from the control of external social contacts. Thus Rousseau constructs an ideal society in the solitude of his forest retreat. The lonely child enjoys the companions.h.i.+p of his imaginary comrade. George Eliot aspires to join the choir invisible. The mystic seeks communion with divinity.

This form of isolation within the realm of social contacts is known as privacy. Indeed privacy may be defined as withdrawal from the group, with, at the same time, ready access to it. It is in solitude that the creative mind organizes the materials appropriated from the group in order to make novel and fruitful innovations. Privacy affords opportunity for the individual to reflect, to antic.i.p.ate, to recast, and to originate. Practical recognition of the human demand for privacy has been realized in the study of the minister, the office of the business man, and the den of the boy. Monasteries and universities are inst.i.tutions providing leisure and withdrawal from the world as the basis for personal development and preparation for life's work. Other values of privacy are related to the growth of self-consciousness, self-respect, and personal ideals of conduct.

Many forms of isolation, unlike privacy, prevent access to stimulating social contact. Selections under the heading "Isolation and r.e.t.a.r.dation"

indicate conditions responsible for the arrest of mental and personal growth.

The cases of feral men, in the absence of contradictory evidence, seem adequate in support of Aristotle's point that social contacts are indispensable for human development. The story by Helen Keller, the talented and celebrated blind deaf-mute, of her emergence from the imprisonment of sense deprivation into the free life of communication is a most significant sociological doc.u.ment. With all of us the change from the animal-like isolation of the child at birth to personal partic.i.p.ation in the fullest human life is gradual. In Helen Keller's case the transformation of months was telescoped into minutes. The "miracle" of communication when sociologically a.n.a.lyzed seems to consist in the transition from the experience of _sensations_ and _sense perceptions_ which man shares in common with animals to the development of _ideas_ and _self-consciousness_ which are the unique attributes of human beings.