An Introduction to Social Psychology

Chapter 31: Types and Functions of Indirect Contact Groups

Luther Lee Bernard

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DIRECT AND INDIRECT CONTACT GROUPS RELATED—  We found that the direct contact groups fall into two major divisions, the primary and the secondary or derivative groups. The derivative groups furthermore extend beyond the limits of face-to-face associations into the field of indirect contact groups. These indirect contact groups embrace the mixed types referred to in the previous chapter— the associations, societies, and institutions— and a wholly indirect type of group, the public. The public is the psychic aspect of indirect group contacts and may be considered either as an indefinite separate group form, or as the medium in and through which the other indirect group contacts are integrated. Because of this peculiar relationship of publics to other group forms we shall devote most of this chapter to their consideration. Associations, societies, and institutions will here be considered wholly as indirect contact groups, although obviously they are not exclusively such.

There is no distinct dividing line between face-to-face and distance contacts in derivative groups of the simpler sort. The transition in such groups to indirect contacts of the members is a gradual one. Even in the case of the more abstract and far-reaching indirect contact groups— the publics and associations proper— there are upon occasion supplementary direct contacts. Representatives of the publics and associations come together for greater facility and freedom of discussion and for purposes of making quick decisions on some controversial issue. Governments of all types and sizes of territorial units afford good examples of this practice. The same sort of thing occurs in corporations, science, art, educational, reform and other indirect contact associations and publics. Perhaps the chief

(480) source of deliberative assemblies in our day is this occasional condensation of publics and associations for purposes of discussion. Deliberative assemblies are ordinarily made up of representatives of publics and associations, and they are formed for purposes of rational discussion. Hence the care generally used in elaborating for their guidance a complex system of rules and a large body of administrative officers. Although we placed the deliberative assembly third in our list of direct contact groups, it is the chief functional connecting link between direct contact groups and publics and associations.

THE CLASSIFICATION OF INDIRECT CONTACT GROUPS— We also found that the various types of direct contact groups already have well established names. We listed and described them without much attempt at classification. They might, however, be classified according to the degree of their permanency, stability, the methods of communication used in them, their size, the types of people included, their functions, the degree to which the members are aware of these functions, the degree of the functional unity among the members, and the degree of compactness and definiteness of organization. In listing and describing the major types of direct contact groups it was not possible to make any very large use of these criteria of classification, because the classifications overlap in such a way that they cannot be made to run parallel. In general, however, these types of groups were listed according to the relative degree of their permanency and the degree of definiteness of their organization, and especially of the rationality of purposes and methods employed.

We find also that publics and other indirect contact groups bear fairly well established class names. One convenient method of classifying them is to follow precedent and, as in the case of direct contact groups, to arrange them under the captions already applied to them by popular usage. But some criterion must be formed to determine the order in which they shall be listed. Indirect contact groups may be classified according to their function, the degree to which the members are aware of the organization and of the function, the degree to which they are organized in the pursuit of some purpose, the kinds of organization (political, economic, esthetic, etc.), the

( 481) instruments by which they achieve their organization or communication of aims and contents, the extent of territory covered, the proportion by ages, sex, and classes of the demotic content included, the degree of compactness or looseness of organization, the kind of leadership accepted or adopted, the permanency, etc. Such classifications as these also overlap and it is not possible to arrange a list of indirect contact groups in such a way as to exemplify all of these classifications in any definite order of succession. Therefore, it will serve our purposes better to describe briefly a few of the more prominent associations and publics under the names popularly assigned to them and to indicate their classification when it seems important to do so.

ASSOCIATIONS of the indirect contact type are the inevitable result of modern life. Modern communication and transportation systems have made it increasingly easy for widely separated individuals to combine into associations for mutual benefit, and the needs of modern life have made it equally necessary. They are purposive and very definitely organized, usually with an elaborate constitution or set of rules. Cole defines an association as "any group of persons pursuing a common purpose or system or aggregation of purposes by a course of coöperative action extending beyond a single act, and, for this purpose, agreeing together upon certain methods of procedure, and laying down, in however rudimentary a form, rules for common action. At least two things are fundamentally necessary to any association— a common purpose or purposes and, to a certain extent, rules of common action."

Associations may be classified according to whether the members have direct or indirect contacts. They may further be classified according to their functions or purposes. Thus there are economic, political, religious, recreational, social reform, etc., associations. They maybe grouped according to the nationality of the members into American, English, German, etc. There are various degrees of stability in associations; some are temporary, while others are more Permanent, Cole has a two-fold classification, first according to the content of the interests and second according to the method of operation. Thus he divides associations according to the form they take

( 482) into "political, the vocational and appetitive, the religious, the provident, the philanthropic, the sociable, and the theoretic." On the basis of the method of operation, he distinguishes the administrative and the propagandist. Associations may also be divided into sub-groupings, either on the basis of territory or on the basis of function. Thus there may be a national or an international association with various sub-associations. Also there are economic associations with sub-groupings for philanthropic, political, or other action; or religious associations with sub-divisions for philanthropic, educational, political, or economic purposes; etc.

The members of associations are usually very conscious of their membership in the organization. They feel bonds of community with other members in carrying out the purposes of the association. Thus in an economic association, such as a trade union, the members feel bound by ties of common interest, although in other fields, religious, political, or racial, they may be more or less antagonistic to each other. Similarly men may have religious interests in common if they belong to the same religious association and still experience economic or political antagonisms. This illustrates a very significant principle regarding indirect contact groups, especially of the association type. They claim only a relatively small part of the personality, not the whole of it. One can belong fully to only one family, one play group, or one neighborhood, and to only one face-to-face group of any kind at a time. He may belong to as many associations as he has diverse interests, and this is true in the main of other indirect contact groups also. The attempts of radical labor leaders to make the workers "class conscious" have often failed because all individuals have more than economic interests, and belong to other associations than merely the economic. The overlapping of associations, societies, and institutions is possible because of the segregation of interests within the individual. He associates himself in indirect contact groups according to the various types of interests which he experiences. Sometimes these interests are based on his organic drives. In other cases they are the result of his acquired behavior patterns. Frequently they rest upon both types of impulses. But on the whole there is perhaps

( 483) some tendency for indirect contact associations to be built primarily upon acquired interests, while the native drives more frequently find direct expression through face-to-face group contacts. There are more acquired interests in modern life than in primitive, consequently there are more associations and other types of indirect contact groups.

The association cuts across publics, although for certain purposes it constitutes a public in itself. It also crosses the boundaries of societies, although perhaps less frequently. Associations cut across each other also, since individuals may belong to several different associations. Economic associations are perhaps the most far-reaching in crossing the boundaries of other indirect contact groups because in cases of acute conflict within the individual the sustenance interests will usually win out. Political and religious associations also are far-reaching.

Most associations of any degree of permanency or importance have some organ of communication, such as a magazine, newspaper, advertising, radio, etc.

SOCIETIES— The concept of society is not at all clear-cut and precise, but indicates rather the fact of reciprocal and coöperative relations of human beings as they function in primary groups, associations, publics, institutions, etc. We frequently speak of all mankind or of a nation as a whole as society by which we mean, as Park and Burgess indicate, "a constellation of other smaller societies, that is to say, races, peoples, parties, factions, cliques, clubs, etc." As Cole states it, society in general is "a resultant of the interaction and complementary character of the various functional associations and institutions. Its concern is solely with the organized cooperation of human beings." It is readily seen, therefore, that all the groups we have discussed, primary and derivative, of the direct or indirect contact type, together or any combination of them, constitute a society. In fact any group whatever may be called a society, although such usage is indefinite and of doubtful value. Iii primitive society, past anti present, the direct contact groups predominate, but in modern society, as we have already emphasized, the tendency is for the derivative groups to dominate the whole. Thus publics and associations come to

( 484) be more important in determining policies than the family, the neighborhood, or the local community. A comparison of modern and medieval European societies illustrates clearly this tendency. Modern democratic societies, as contrasted with feudal societies, are likewise illustrative of this principle. The loyalties of the individual in a feudal society are chiefly to the local primary group or community and secondarily to the king or chief who symbolizes the whole organization. In modern democratic societies, one's first allegiance is to the abstract society as a whole, and secondarily to his state, his city, or his community. If there is a conflict of interests, the good of the larger society is ordinarily conceived to come first. If we accept Giddings' classification of societies into sympathetic, congenial, approbational, despotic, authoritative, conspirital, contractual, and idealistic, we may still observe this principle working in view of the fact that modern societies are more and more of the idealistic type which generally involve indirect rather than direct association.

TYPES OF PUBLICS— NATIONALITIES— Perhaps the widest-reaching publics possessing any considerable degree of consciousness of kind or of similarity of purpose of the members are nationalities. Nationalities are also societies. We have already mentioned the functional types of consciousness which help to integrate nationalities. Each of these factors also serves as the basis for the integration of publics of greater or less extent than nationalities. Thus we have language publics, religious publics, and various groups centering about all sorts of customs, traditions, conventions, beliefs, folkways, mores, etc., such as may be integrated into publics.

LANGUAGE PUBLICS —  Since indirect contact groups or publics are formed and held together by means of communication, language is naturally the most important of all of the factors integrating publics. Language similarity merely provides the mechanism for the integration of the public. Of itself it is not determinative of the degree of compactness or of consciousness of a common purpose or of the type of organization and leadership of the public. These must depend primarily on other factors, such as similarity of the people included and of their needs, the geographic setting in which

( 481) they are located, the technique at their disposal for making a common language effective in communication, the degree and kinds of concerted opposition to their functional unity and culture which they encounter from without, the kinds and efficiency of their educational systems, and the degree and quality of their culture. Publics always tend to be as widespread as the common language, but this correspondence of territory with language may be prevented especially by conflict in national or economic or religious interests, by distance, or by differences in degrees of culture. Radical differences in culture may amount almost to a difference in languages, because of the differences in terminology and subtlety of meaning involved in expression. Dialects also correspond pretty closely to grades in culture.

Some publics transcend the barriers of language differences, especially when economic, geographic, religious, or political, and even cultural interests are widespread. Thus there is developing a sort of vague world-wide public consciousness as the result of international trade and finance. The great world religions reach across language barriers, modern empires include many tongues, and the scientific public is truly international. But all publics which extend beyond uniform language areas are ordinarily not highly conscious of their similarity of kind and of purpose. They are easily broken up when smaller and more highly unified other publics come in conflict with them. The pages of history are filled with attempts to expand and integrate public opinion over wide areas, including many languages, peoples, economic interests, and diverse customs and beliefs, in the support of political units and powers. The failures are almost as numerous as the attempts. Success is, however, more marked in our day than at any previous time in history, because with the growth in means of communication there has been a parallel expansion of economic interests and enterprises and of culture. The radical dissimilarity of peoples tends to disappear, religions become more tolerant of each other, and customs and beliefs tend to be adjusted throughout the world. An international language would be of the very greatest service in furthering these uniformizing tendencies and in the production of more widespread publics.

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SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CLASSES AS PUBLICS— The various industrial and occupational and social class publics perhaps come next after language in the matter of extent. Modern states tend somewhat to be integrated about unity of economic opportunity, natural resources and other economico-geographic factors. Unity of public consciousness and of public opinion usually follow in the wake of political integration, or perhaps as often produce political integration, if not prevented by other interrupting factors. Those of the same occupational, professional, and social class interests throughout the world also tend to become aware of their common interests and of the advisability of coöperating. Socialist leaders boasted before the Great War that the working classes of the world were a brotherhood, of which the red flag (symbolizing community of blood) was the symbol, and that no more wars could occur, because the workers of the nations would not fight against each other. Likewise, when the Great War had progressed for about three years and there was apparent danger that its great destructiveness of life and property and the burden of debt which it was piling up might induce the revolt of the working classes after it closed, Lord Lansdowne appealed to the ruling classes of all countries to stop the war in their common interest. When republics were new in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the titled and privileged classes of all countries made common war upon them. This was particularly true in the case of the French Revolution. The Holy Alliance is another example of this tendency. To-day the prevailing public opinion of the world seems to be directed against the soviet republic of Russia.

This coöperative or public consciousness of classes, based on class interests, appears to be growing everywhere throughout the world. Long ago it had developed within national and local territorial units. It has always been the chief line of cleavage between political parties, as earlier it was the chief basis of the distinction between rulers and ruled. The chief psycho-social significance of political parties is that the for merly unrecognized and unintegrated classes have developed sufficient public consciousness to organize as indirect contact groups or associations and publics and to substitute parliamen-

(487) -tary and publicity methods of promoting their interests for the old practices of intermittent and sporadic revolt through violence.

RELIGION A\D SCIENCE AS BASES OF PUBLICS— Religions were formerly, and still are, powerful integrations of public opinion. At certain periods of history they have overshadowed or dominated the organization of practically all other types of publics. This was because the content of their religious public consciousness appeared to men to be the most important for the control of human relationships. The beliefs of religion, touching as they did all aspects of man's most fundamental relations and obligations, dominated his hygiene, diet, ethical values, reproductive and domestic contacts, social obligations, esthetic attitudes and opinions, even his economic and political practices. No public or association could be formed which was not acceptable to the dominant religion. Tolerance of different religious beliefs was impossible. But with the development of a wider range of contacts made possible by the growth of better facilities for communication, which have brought all the peoples of the world and their practices and beliefs into contact with each other, a larger degree of tolerance has developed. Still perhaps this tolerance is in some religions snore the result of a truce or compromise than of a decrease in the dogmatism of religious beliefs or faith in the special efficacy of particular rituals and magic.

But even religious dogmatism has gradually been diminished by the development of a secular philosophy, as earlier described, and the growth of demonstrated scientific data and principles. The spreading abroad of new knowledge has tended to weaken the grasp of religious tradition upon the control of human conduct and to deritualize adaptive behavior and to advance religion to the function of a social and supernatural sanction of the practices approved by science. The old religious dogmas and rituals were usually based upon what appeared to be the best procedures men had discovered at the time the beliefs and practices were reduced to dogmas and ritual. The effect of the new learning of science is to advance the beliefs and practices of religion to the level of a saner scientific knowledge and practice. Because religion has often opposed this rational

( 488) modernization it has lost caste with many, and science has correspondingly gained. As a consequence the power and scope of the religious publics have declined, while those of science and of philosophic opinion, sound and unsound, have greatly increased. The number of publics or of integrations of public opinion about all sorts of beliefs and isms in our day is astounding. But the contents of these are gradually being tested by the standards of science and order is being brought out of this chaotic condition.

ART PUBLICS, ETC. —  Other important publics are being organized around fashions, fads, crazes, and conventional beliefs of all sorts. These are discussed in the chapter on non-institutional controls and need not be dealt with here. Artistic or esthetic publics also constitute a considerable phase of the organized behavior of man. Perhaps enough has been said in Part IV about the communicative function of art in society to indicate the social importance of art publics. One additional remark is perhaps appropriate. The substitution of esthetic standards of measurement of the value of individual and collective behavior for scientifically tested utilitarian values may have a very unfavorable effect upon social organization and survival. Esthetic standards are almost wholly subjective and the amount of correction which they receive from the uniformizing effect of public opinion in the field of art— if this public opinion is the product of esthetic rather than of scientific and utilitarian judgment— will not serve to render them truly objective. Since art, like religion, is so largely concerned with emotional attitudes and values, the artist classes, like the priestly, are always in danger of pronouncing judgment upon behavior from the standpoint of esthetic or feeling criteria. This must be corrected by an appeal to the sciences, especially to the social sciences.

INSTITUTIONAL PUBLICS —  Publics also grow up about all sorts of local and national interests. We have not space to deal with these individually. But the major interests of mankind tend to organize for their satisfaction vast systems of technique, of beliefs and procedure, which remain relatively constant, at least in form, over long periods of time. These relatively stable integrations of adjustment technique are in-

( 489) -stitutions. The technique is held together functionally by the unified approval of the group which constitutes the personality content of the institution. Each institution has its public, whether it be religious, political, domestic, economic, artistic, or any type whatever. Each institution is, in a sense, a public. The nature and functions of institutions will be discussed in a separate chapter.

In this discussion we have given most of our attention to the relative extent and functional solidarity of publics, which enable them to survive in competition with other publics. Also our discussion has not attempted to show the effects of different degrees of compactness of organization and of consciousness of purpose in the members of publics upon the functioning of those publics. This is an important phase of a complete treatment of the subject of publics. Some implications regarding this matter will develop incidentally in connection with the discussion of non-institutional and institutional controls. There is not space for a more detailed analysis of publics, and such is not necessary in a general treatise on the principles of social psychology. A detailed application of our classification to the problems of social organization and control would more properly come in separate treatises on those subjects.

EFFECTS OF THE WIDER CONTACTS OF INDIRECT CONTACT GROUPS— SYMPATHY AND TOLERANCE— The expansion of groups and the development of contacts have had many important effects upon the life and attitudes of modern populations. One of the most obvious of these is the broadening of the sympathies of modern cultured peoples. The increase of our indirect contacts, if not direct ones, through increased travel has brought us into quasi-contact with the most distant peoples. We have learned facts regarding the more intimate aspects of their lives— their struggles, fears, hopes, aims, fortitude, sincerity, and many other qualities. We have found them, although in different clothes and with various customs and languages, surprisingly like ourselves in the fundamental aims and relationships of life. Their sorrows and joys, amusements and sense of responsibility, their needs and efforts at their satisfaction, loyalties and affections, are of a pattern with our own, although their religious beliefs may be different,

( 490) their governments undemocratic or even unintelligent, and their languages "sound like some meaningless jargon." Human nature, like human problems, is not so different in all parts of the world, although it may be expressed through different forms of behavior and different symbols, and be manifested in different degrees. As a result of these indirect contacts through the press, the stories of missionaries, traders, returned travelers, and pictures, we have come to understand the fundamental aspects of peoples under the superficial covering of dissimilarity of dress, beliefs, and mannerisms. Our humanitarianism has broadened. The old classification of the world into Greeks and barbarians, Jews and Gentiles, or kindred terms of contrast, has all but disappeared. We still recognize, to be sure, differences in the degrees of achievement of civilization and in the fitness of men by training and outlook to carry on the work of science and culture. But we no longer tolerate to the same extent acts of cruelty to and oppression of the weak by the powerful, of the ignorant by the sophisticated, merely because the former classes are far away and speak a different language, worship strange gods and wear "absurd" clothes. We have come in some degree to grasp the relativity of things social. We recognize, at least to some extent, that nothing in the matter of clothing could be more absurd than our fashions. Contacts with many peoples and philosophies have shown the more intellectual among us that practically all peoples have believed themselves to possess revealed and infallible religions. Tolerance and a growing sense of a world-wide brotherhood of purpose, if not of race, are the chief fruits of our wider, derivative contacts.

LIMITATIONS UPON TOLERANCE AND SYMPATHY— But we should not deceive ourselves into believing that this tolerance and sympathy are fully achieved and that all men adopt them fully. Although the range of sympathy has vastly increased, even as the range of our indirect contacts has grown, sympathy and tolerance for things unlike what we know are still very superficial acid thin. We accept the peoples of a different color, religion, dress, or philosophy into the general fold of our humanity only if they do not come into conflict with us economically and politically. We have learned through the development

( 491) of scientific standards of social behavior and a comparative study of the mores and folkways of all peoples the relativity of beliefs based on tradition rather than knowledge. of color, of the cut of clothes, of customs and conventions of social intercourse. But our economic interests and the political interests which support these come nearer home to us and we are less tolerant of any differences in the behavior of others which lead to conflict regarding these fundamental interests. We would no longer fight an international war because of differences in religion or of dress or of customs and beliefs about magic or philosophy, as our predecessors living in an age less enlightened by intimate knowledge of other peoples are supposed to have done, but we do go to war over disputes regarding territory, the non-payment of debts, the exploitation of natural resources, and the like. Tolerance of the economic conflicts of interest can be achieved only with the greatest difficulty. The better policy is to cause such conflicts to disappear through some form of coöperation which makes for a greater uniformity of economic interest over the world as a whole.

DISTANCE CONTACT SYMPATHIES WEAKER— The newer and wider-spread sympathies are also less intense than the old ones which grew up in the primary and face-to-face groups because of the difference in the ways in which the two types of sympathy and understanding are built up in us. The sympathies and loyalties of the direct contact groups are largely concretely emotional, being the product quite as much of sensory contacts and impressions as of an intellectual understanding. But we must rely in the main upon indirect and nonsensory contacts, or the mediation of intellectual symbols, for our understanding of superficially unlike peoples at a distance. Emotional attitudes towards such people can be aroused only through the translation of these intellectual symbols and concepts into the language of the senses and emotions. Also our contacts with those nearest us, and in face-to-face relations with us, are much more numerous than those with people at a distance. Hence, concreteness, volume, acid persistency of contacts all operate in favor of the greater sympathy for those near us and condition our impulses to a stronger emotional response in their behalf. We ordinarily still think more of members of

( 492) our immediate family than of any one else in the world, more of our kin than of acquaintances, of friends than of strangers, of fellow nationals than of members of other nationalities within the same race, and of members of our own race than of other races. But this is not necessarily true of those who have developed strongly the intellectual methods of understanding and have subjected themselves rigorously to abstract controls over behavior.

THE EFFECT UPON PERSONALITY— This expansion of contacts to the indirect and derivative sphere, and of our sympathies and understanding to include all men, has had a marked effect upon the personalities of the modern cultivated man and woman. They have become more cosmopolitan, urbane, and complete or well rounded. They are perhaps less intense and impulsive, but they are also less bigoted. The behavior of such personalities is sure to be more rational and tolerant. It is the ignorant person, whether ignorant of human nature at home or abroad, who resorts most easily to force in minor maladjustments with companions or nations. The cosmopolitan personality can see things from many angles and distinguish fundamental conflicts from the incidental and temporary. The intellectualized and cosmopolitan personality does not really lose force of character, although at first glance it may seem to do so. The bigoted or ignorant man may be the first to take direct and overt action, because he has only one resource in solving his problem— the one which is most obvious and direct. But the intellectual personality, whose sympathies and understanding are broader, usually gains accuracy and effectiveness through his apparent delay in action. He transfers his behavior from the overt to the internal sphere and works out a "solution." He is ruled by intellect rather than by emotions. In the end his solution is best and will endure longest. If all past religious disputes and conflicts of cultures and races, of mores and of beliefs, could have been settled by the method of the cosmopolitan character instead of by that of the bigot of the narrow N view, the NN world w ould be richer acid happier now. Even in the twentieth century we need nothing else so much as tolerance produced by a wider understanding of men and institutions everywhere, and a final resort to the arbitra-

( 493) -tion of science instead of to that of force in the settlement of disputes and conflicts of interest.

THE DEVELOPMENT AND UTILIZATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AS A RESULT— Social science is the crowning achievement of this intellectualization of the means of communication which has arisen as the result of the expansion of group contacts and of the use of abstract symbols as the media of language. As the substitution of vocal symbols for gestures and of writing for pictures in communication brought language from an emotional to an intellectual plane, so has the invention of quantitative symbols and logic within language given rise to science. Gradually the emotional content in language gives way to the intellectual and the indefinite and ambiguous in communication are replaced by the accurate and the quantitative. The result is that our understanding of our world, near and far, is greatly increased and made more definite and dependable. The life of emotion does not disappear with the intellectualization of language and tile scientific testing of hypotheses, beliefs, and behavior. It is only controlled and made effectively functional in adjustment situations by the application of scientific tests and direction to it. The human spirit is set free from prejudice, narrowness, and bigotry by this intellectual and scientific dominance, and a wider range of cooperation and a more effective type of collective behavior are made possible.

MOB-MINDEDNESS AND MISREPRESENTATION IN INDIRECT CONTACT GROUPS— But it must not be supposed that the advent of science and the intellectualization of our contacts has freed us entirely from the dangers of the mob spirit and rule by suggestion in the interests of prejudiced or corrupt factions such as we found to obtain so easily in the direct contact groups. Mob-mindedness does exist in the public as `yell as in the crowd, as may be illustrated by the panic and the boom and in war time. It may be carried by the newspaper, radio, moving picture, propagandist orator, bigoted preacher, or any other agency of indirect communication which is operative in the derivative group. Abstract words after all have their emotional associations and may condition irrational responses. And much of our language is still largely emotional in its content. The range of epithets which may be employed by the

( 494) propagandist and partisan to produce almost exclusively emotional and irrational responses is very wide. Figures of speech with emotional connotations, an emotional style, scores of methods of appealing to prejudice and bigotry rather than to reason, to fear instead of to confidence and constructive tolerance, may be employed by writers for the daily paper as well as by the orator. Incendiary and bigoted writings and speeches broadcast by radio are altogether too prevalent to-day for the good of our civilization. The movies, with their more direct and immediate appeal to emotion through the depicting of gesture and facial expression, can be and too frequently are made powerful instruments of partisan propaganda. We have discovered the language of science, but it is still too frequently neglected in organizing the public opinion and collective behavior of mankind to have dissipated the mob spirit entirely.

OVERCOMING OBSTACLES TO RATIONAL CONTROL IN INDIRECT CONTACT GROUPS— And yet we have made important advances in the direction of the substitution of the language of science and of scientific thinking for emotional appeal and behavior. We have achieved the method by which collective behavior may be reorganized and rationally controlled in the interest of a truly coöperative and democratic social order. There are yet some obstacles to putting this method completely into practice. One is that we have not yet been able, in spite of the rapid extension of our educational system, to bring the majority of mankind within a reasonable distance intellectually of our leading scientific thinkers. The data and principles of science must be made as nearly universal possessions as possible. The church must become a coöperator with the school in this respect, in order that true knowledge and a true religion may develop together and that there shall not be a fundamental opposition between the two greatest interests of mankind. Another difficulty is that we have not yet learned how to make the dissemination of knowledge and the creation of public opinion a function of the total social interest instead of partisanship and prejudice. Unification of beliefs and dictation of opinion by some official bureau or agency are not desirable, at least under present conditions. But there is the greatest need for some method of checking willful misrepresentation through press, radio, movie, and the speeches of propagandists

( 495) wherever such misrepresentation exists and in whatever cause. Scientific accuracy of statement of fact, or the statement of opinion as opinion and not as fact, are the ends to be desired. Just how these ends are to be attained is not yet clear, but they are probably not impossible of achievement. A reasonably proper functioning of derivative group contacts and controls and the normal existence of derivative groups are not possible without them.

Nor need we despair of achieving such ends. We saw in the preceding chapters that whenever human beings are in face-to-face relationships, their behavior tends to become emotional. We saw that, in order to curb this tendency, elaborate rules, codes, parliamentary procedure, detailed administrative laws, and other technique were developed. The best illustration of this attempt at rational control of face-to-face contacts is the deliberative assembly. A description of its method of operation, its weaknesses as well as its strong points, was included in Chapter XXVIII. Etiquette, manners, "good form" in general, are other less rational attempts to prevent human contacts from becoming too uncontrolled. I f such controls could be achieved in the more emotional face-to-face contacts, it should be possible for the human mind to devise equally efficient controls to prevent non-face-to-face contacts from being perverted by mob-mindedness.

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