Chapter IX
On Certain Interactions
The Forerunner: Vol. V, No. 9 (p. 244-249)
September 1914
Social life, like other life-forms, has its body and its soul; the soul, that widening spirit of conscious humanity; the body, the mechanical structure in and through which we function.
Further, of a society as of an individual, we may say, "Mens sana copore sano." For a truly sound social mind we must have a sound social body. This truth we were a long time discovering, even of the physical body. Asceticism has always striven to ennoble the soul by degrading the body, and always failed.
That Epicureanism has done no better is because it has misunderstood the uses of the body, and put sensation before function. Very slowly, and only through a growing knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and hygiene, have we come to know the relation between body and soul; to see how indigestion causes bad temper, and irritation of the intestinal tract, melancholy. It is within a few years only that we have begun to appreciate the "fatigue poisons," which so injure body and mind.
If this knowledge of our personal relation of body and soul is so imperfect, so recent, it is no wonder that we are still slower to see the relation between society's body and soul.
Yet the last is as important, as unescapable, as the first. As much as personal health is a necessary concomitant of personal righteousness, so is social health a part of social righteousness.
Into this wide new field of study we must press, examining not only the crasser diseases of society, such as vice, crime, and poverty, but those subtler, less obvious difficulties,-malposition, dislocation, obstruction, which may be potent causes of enormous evil. To consider again that conspicuous historic instance of chattel slavery: Here is an industrial relation, purely external, in which human labor is performed under the pressure of another's will, and for that other's benefit. Such a relation, acting continually upon both parties, steadily tends to produce certain qualities in the master and in the slave.
Unquestioned mastery develops selfishness, pride, laziness, cruelty, and, in the male, sensuality.
Hopeless slavery develops blind submission, humility, laziness (except under compulsion) and a general feebleness of character. In both the result is to check invention, discovery, progress.
The master is weakened in every nerve by having everything done for him, the slave, by having no room for individual action.
Now suppose you come to teach ethics, personal, domestic, or social, to those living under this condition.
No matter how earnest is the desire to do right, the individual is heavily handicapped by the tendencies of his condition. It is harder for a man who owns female slaves to be continent than it is for a man who must woo—or at least pay, before he is granted indulgence.
It is harder for the female slave to be chaste than if she were free to refuse, to fly, or even to fight. External conditions seriously affect ethics, both in idea and in action.
So, in larger social relation, we find the ethics of a given community varying in accordance with conditions,-climatic, economic, domestic, political, mechanical. Human love and friendliness have been markedly promoted by the steam-engine and its quickening of all transportation.
The motor-car, in its present stage of use, has an amazing power to harden the heart and dull the soul to crime. Murder is committed by means of this machine by people who would never do it with a gun or an ax. The mere speed and power of the thing seems to make monsters of those who ride in it, not invariably of course, but as a tendency.
An absolute monarchy develops certain traits, both in ruler and ruled, as inevitably as does chattel slavery.
Economic pressure, though greatly overestimated by some thinkers, does have a powerful effect upon the soul. And in the sex-relation, polygamy, polyandry, monogamy or promiscuity, all show their effects.
In studying social ethics we must allow for the action and interaction of all our complex conditions, and so, at once, learn patience and tolerance.
But the field is not so hopelessly complicated as it might appear at first glance.
Those governing laws of action which we call "principles" are safe guides in the confusion.
We have but to discriminate between one social function and another, see its use and purpose and thereby its laws of conduct, and so see our way to clear decision.
One thing is needed, of course; that basic assumption, insisted upon from our opening chapter, that Society is the object of all Social Action. If we err in this; if we seek to establish the right and wrong of social conduct on purely personal grounds, we wholly fail. That is the one main error of all our ethics to-day-it does not recognize the preponderant claims of society.
Let us now consider some one human activity such as that of a doctor.
What is a doctor? He is a member of society specialized for the purpose of curing the sick and of maintaining the health of the well.
What is "right" for a doctor? To so live, so study, so act, as shall establish and maintain the most human health. Surely that is clear.
Now suppose he is offered a salary larger than his income from general practise to be a private physician-to keep one person well. Is that a right or wrong thing to do?
It depends on the thing—is the health of that person of more value to society than the health of the doctor's former circle of patients?
If so, he would be justified in taking the position-and the salary.
But suppose the new patron is merely some social parasite or brigand, some criminal, recognized as such or not—then what is the doctor's duty.
To refuse the job, of course.
But the salary?
The salary has nothing to do with it.
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Or let us consider a lawyer.
What is a lawyer? He is a member of society specialized for the purpose of maintaining "law and order" and promoting justice.
What is "right" for a lawyer? To so live, so study, so act, as to establish and maintain the most social justice-surely that is clear.
Now suppose he is offered a far larger salary than his income from general practise, to promote and protect the special interests of one corporation. Is that a right or a wrong thing to do?
It depends on the nature of the activities of that corporation. Is its purpose and result to the advantage of society? Are its processes honest, fair, legal, just? Does the lawyer, through serving it, best serve society?
If so, it would be "right" to do it.
If the corporation is but a form of parasitism or brigandage, of rank social injury and wide injustice, it would be "wrong."
But the salary?
The salary has nothing to do with it.
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To take a still commoner profession,—what is a grocer?
He is a member of society, specialized for the purpose of collecting and distributing food for society.
What is "right conduct" for a grocer?
To collect and distribute the most and best food, for the most people, at the least expense.
But suppose he can secure a larger income for himself by handling less food, or food of a poorer quality, or absolutely bad and poisonous stuff, or by charging extortionately, and by deceiving those he feeds? Would this be right?
Visibly not; it would be wrong.
But the income?
The income has nothing to do with it.
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We here face one of the most general misconceptions in social relation; a misconception which acts as a continuing cause for unmeasured evil.
Most of us unquestioningly assume as an axiom in economics, that a business is performed for the payment received; and on that assumption in economics we base our ethics.
The recognized religious teaching as to honesty and good-will to men we admit–as religious teachings; but hold that "business is business," and that religion has no hold on it.
Our personal ethics conflicts sharply with our personal economics; but between social economics and social ethics there is no disagreement.
That is right for a given organism which leads to its best development-and as soon as we recognize society as the organic life in which we exist, all our petty primitive inter-personal problems disappear.
Let no ill-considered protest as to the intense and increasing individuality of human beings confuse this issue. Of course we have individuality-it is a social product. Individuation is in proportion to organization, and is developed by it.
But our so-called individual activities are in reality social activities, and only as such to be rightly fulfilled.
In our present stage of social advancement we are, in economics, highly socialized; but in ethics, still strongly individual. From the highway robber to the manipulator of stocks, the acting force is the same, mere self-interest; and that by no means what might be called "an enlightened self-interest," but pitifully unenlightened.
We delay, clog, weaken divert, adulterate, and poison the currents of social service, under this mistaken idea of self-interest.
As has been shown in earlier chapters, the human mind has clearly proven its power to modify conduct under the force of false ideas; it is the regular habit of that mind, throughout history.
To-day the largest and falsest concept in all our social activities is this universal idea of individualism. In the whole field of warfare between Labor and Capital we see this mistaken position firmly held on both sides. The Capitalist stands, not for Capital, that invaluable promoter of progress, but for each man's right to accumulate "his own money" for the Private Ownership of Capital.
The Workman stands, not for Labor, that indispensable creator of Capital, as well as of all our social necessities, but for each man's right to the product of "his own labor"-for the Private Ownership of Labor.
Both are Both are Individualists. looking at social life as a fruitful source of profit, to the individual. Even the earnest socialist looks at labor as a thing to be minimized, to do as little of as possible, that a man may have time to "develop his faculties."
How they may be developed-except by exerting them, or for what purpose, except social service-it is hard to see.
We cannot establish the ethics of economic action until we understand what that action is, and what it is for.
If the varied activities of human life are merely processes by which individuals are to be fed; if society's accumulated energy, capital, is intended for the gross gratification of a few individuals only; then the Laborer is right to seek the most pay for the least work, and the Capitalist is right in trying to secure, to consume and to control.
See now the difference in our ethics when we commonly understand the nature of social life. From earliest years our children could be taught that simple and prominent fact—the interdependence of human life. It is a clear and interesting story; the group-hunting, which brought down more game; the group-fighting which meant more safety; and how in this common activity the ethics of comradeship developed.
Question to class: If the tribe is hunting a mammoth, and the hunter who knew where he was saw a fat opossum which would feed him well enough, should he go off after the opossum, or keep on after the mammoth-which would be right?
Answer: To keep after the mammoth,
Q. Why?
A. Because if they all got the mammoth they would all have more to eat-including him.
Q. Why should he care to help feed the others?
A. Because in the long run he will be safer and get more to eat as part of a strong tribe.
A normal child of five could understand the ethics of this stage of action, could see what is right, and why. The older person, seeing that much, sees also that a savage who failed to appreciate the position, who forgot the tribal interest for his own immediate advantage, would be not only a traitor but a fool.
Our doctor, lawyer, or grocer, who similarly forgets the social interests for his own immediate advantage, is, similarly, a traitor and a fool.
It is true that he can "get away with it" where the savage could not. It is true that he is honestly ignorant of the social laws which should hold him to true service. But neither natural nor civil law takes account of ignorance. He should know. The facts are before him and the brain is in his head.
Can any man fail to see the more complex but equally clear inter-relation of our social activities?
It is the baldest truism to state that the safety and advantage of modern individuals depends on the safety and advantage of the state they belong to; and that state advantage is served by the daily fulfillment of function. Surely it is clear that if no man was honest, if all our food was poisoned, if no work was reliable and every business man a conscienceless scoundrel we should have no state.
Our earliest ethics has postulated certain lines of conduct as advantage. "Honesty is the best policy," for instance; but it has never taught this simple, child-convincing ethics based on social interactions, because we have not understood sociology.
We teach, in our religions, certain arbitrary acts as pleasing to God; like that ancient ceremonial called "Divine Service." What imaginable service to God or man lies in our ritual is not explained. We are also taught, vaguely, that "a good man" will not be dishonest, that he must "walk uprightly before the Lord."
But in every church we see good men holding an attitude they truly believe to be upright, and yet acting as enemies to society in their business life. They do not understand the nature of that life. They innocently assume that "the world" is merely a great open battlefield wherein men are to strive against one another, each seeking to get as much and give as little as possible; each working primarily in the interests of himself and his family. While we have no better understanding of social economics, we can have no better social ethics.
Our conduct, in economics, is pushed strongly one way by this misplaced self interest, and only faintly influenced by the suggestions of religion. "Business is business," says the hard-fisted tradesman; and "I am not in it for my health." He thinks he is reasonable. He thinks he is doing right under economic law. Yet it is precisely under economic law that he is doing wrong. He is as utterly, as unreasonably wrong, as a football player who devoted his energies to getting hold of the ball—to sell it.
We have been so alienated by the ancient theory of sacrifice; so long deeply convinced that right conduct was a religious form; that being good was a performance meant to please God, and that God was only pleased when we were not, that it is somewhat difficult to show the adult mind how directly contrary is the truth.
But a child may be shown, any unprejudiced, uneducated, irreligious child. It takes neither learning, piety, nor unusual intellect to see that right conduct for a social being means fulfillment of social functions.
Question: What is right conduct for a mosquito?
Answer: To get as must food, to mate as promptly, and to lay as many eggs as she can.
Q. Why should she do this?
A. Because that is the way mosquitos live and to keep mosquitos alive is her duty.
Q. What is right conduct for an ant?
A. To get food, to save most of it for the others, and feed them on request; to care for the queen, for the eggs, for the larvae and pupae and young ants; to build the ant-hill and excavate the inner chambers and passages-and so on, and so on, according to the kind of ant she is.
Q. Why should she do this?
A. Because that is the way ants live—and to keep ants alive is her duty.
Q. What is right conduct for a human being?
A. To obtain food, to mate and reproduce the species, to specialize for the service of society and promote its interests.
Q. Why?
A. Because that is the way human beings live; and not only to live, but to improve—that is our duty.
Q. How is the most food to be obtained with the least effort by human beings?
A. By the study, research and experiment of advanced scientific specialists; by the establishment of government commissions, bureaus, and illustrating stations; by the general education of all the citizens and special training for agriculturalists; by the invention of the best machinery for minimizing labor; by improved means of transportation and distribution, from the planter to the table,— and so on, and so on.
Q. What is the particular right conduct of each person engaged in any part of that great process?
A. To carry on his part to the best fulfillment possible to him.
Q. Why?
A. How foolish to ask! Because if each individual does not do his part right the whole process is injured.
Q. What is to be said of a man who raises poor food, who manufactures bad food, who puts poison in food to sell—that he himself may make more money?
A. He is a traitor, an enemy of society, and a fool.
Q. Why is he a fool.
A. Because society is one living thing; and to poison anybody is also poisoning oneself. It is like a man's injecting poison into his own foot and denying that it hurt him, on the ground that it was a long way off.
Q. But cannot a man injure a great many other people, and yet live comfortably himself he and his family?
A. Yes—so long as he is a fool. He does not see the evil he has done, and he does not see how it affects him, and his family. He could not be "comfortable" if he were wiser.
Here we have our whole position, pitifully clear.
Because we literally do not understand the nature of our social processes, because we have not used our mental power to follow out, to visualize to ourselves, the evil results of our conduct; because we have no instruction in ethics, real practical social ethics; we go on preying upon one another, and imagining that we are comfortable when we have placed ourselves and our families upon some temporary "island of safety" in the crawling struggling mass. It is not that we are "bad"; we are only foolish. The worst that can be said of us, generally, is that we are lazy and timid; too brow-beaten and discouraged as little children ever to use our own minds with any freedom when grown up.
See now, how easily ethics might be taught in childhood.
First the history of our social progress kept always visible throughout the whole actively educative period. Then each question of conduct, as it came up, related to that familiar field of growth; and, whenever possible, left to be studied out.
Teacher: "You can answer that question yourself, John. Try to think it out."
John: "Why should I think it out, when you can tell me the answer at once."
Teacher: "For two reasons. In the always accept what people tell you, you first place I might tell you wrong. If you remain credulous, gullible, a ready victim. (Illustrations given from savage life, and our earlier history). Secondly, because you need the exercise in thinking. The more questions you work out for yourself, the more you will be able to. As soon as we have mastered the old ones we shall be better able to tackle the new ones."
Children so taught will not sit dumb and unprotesting under the silly miseries of our life to-day. They will have more understanding of the reasonableness of ethics. When they ask: "Why are there so many poor people while there is so much room for labor in the world?" and are answered: "These people are poor because they are 'the unfit'; they are failures; they cannot succeed in life,"—such children will not be satisfied with such a foolish answer. They will inquire: "Are they born unfit? How do you know they are failures—have they been carefully tested in all kinds of conditions? you sure they could not succeed in anything?"
Are And further. "Is it good for us-who are successful—to have so many failures about? Would it not be possible for us—who are so successful in getting ahead of them—to do something to improve their quality?"
We only need to use our minds; to use them as machines for thinking and for governing action, not merely as receptacles of the ideas of men many centuries dead.
Right conduct must bear relation to something.
The mosquito has no one to consider but herself, her momentary mate, her deposit of eggs.
The ant has many other ants to consider. She forgoes her own function of egg-laying that the specially fed queen may lay more and better ones. Ant ethics is conditioned upon the needs and activities of the group.
Human ethics is conditioned upon the needs and activities of society. And since, as we have seen, any minor misplacement, any one wrong relation, necessarily affects the health of the whole physical body, so does such misplacement and wrong relation affect the social body.
Further, since economic conditions are universally present, and of vital importance, we find our present economic relation affecting not only our ethics, but our whole social life.
While the condition of chattel slavery existed it produced qualities inevitably modifying social growth. No society, keeping slaves, could ever rise above a certain point.
So while our economic relations persist; while the majority of people never know economic peace, economic freedom; while some of us are too rich and most of us are too poor to "see life steadily and see it whole," there also persist those qualities of mind developed by this relation.
In the disproportionately rich appears the attitude of pride, as of superiors; not that they are superiors-the most casual observation often proves the contrary; but the possession of what others have not seems to them to show them in some way better. They live, as helplessly as a sucking tick, as actively as a hungry flea, or as violently as a robber, on the productive labor of other people; just as the master lived on the labor of his slaves; and, in their very helplessness, find cause for pride.
Pride and selfishness persist not because they are natural human qualities, but because we do not understand what humanity is. In the disproportionately poor, besides the deterioration, physical and mental, induced by their deprivations, we find other qualities similar to those of slaves. While labor is exacted from them as the price of life (instead of being given, as the fruit of life); while they see all the desirable conditions associated with wealth and generally with idleness; so long will they despise their own labor—seek to escape it, and to make others work for them.
Compulsory labor, whether under the lash or the pressure of poverty, is always ignoble and inferior. We have, in civilized races, at last found out that slave labor is unprofitable. Some day we shall find out that our wage-slave-labor is unprofitable too.
Both master and slave, both employer and employed, misunderstand and underrate the real source of human power and human pride.
Our wholesale unchastity is developed by the rich holding power over the poor, precisely as it was by masters holding power over slaves.
Our moral qualities are inevitably modified by our economic conditions.
No ethics could be sound which failed to take account of these interactions. It is futile to preach and persuade and threaten, trying to induce men to live in one way while the whole pressure of their surroundings pushes them another.
Social ethics, once clearly understood, will rearrange the conditions of life, so that it shall be as "natural," as easy, to do right as it now is to do wrong.
(To be continued.)