Fundamentals of Social Psychology
Chapter 27: Group Conflict
Emory S. Bogardus
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CONFLICTS occur not only between persons, but also between groups. In an earlier chapter attention was given to conflict between ideas and between persons; group conflict will now be considered. This crops out in racial conflicts, conflicts of religious groups, between sections of a country, between industrial classes, political parties, and so on. In all their ramifications they encompass human life from every angle, building up some loyalties and breaking others, involving sacrifices of life and loved ones, wrecking even nations.
PREJUDICE AND GROUP CONFLICT
Group conflicts often reach back into ancient prejudices, and plunge people into new and worse prejudices and hatreds. The past thus often forces the present into conflicts. Long-standing animosities keep swords well sharpened. As a result of past prejudices it takes but little to touch off a race riot in the South, a conflict between Mohammedanism and Christianity in Constantinople, and strife between Jew and Pole in the environs of Warsaw. Franco-German relationships are continually awry because of the jagged edges of past prejudices, and the Balkan states are perennially disturbed because of underlying, simmering hatreds.
IGNORANCE AND GROUP CONFLICT
The ignorant imagine conflicting tendencies where only the conservative and liberal phases of the same process are being expressed. The spokes on the opposite sides of a wheel might consider themselves enemies because they are continually going in opposite directions, but the hub notes a forward movement. The blind fist often strikes where the open eye sees no enemy. To one who views life from a local and individual viewpoint only, imagined wrongs easily multiply. A myopic misunderstanding of personal and national life easily begets the bellicose spirit.
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NATIONALISM AND GROUP CONFLICT
National and race pride teaches every group that it is superior to all others and consequently entitled to privileges. It also stresses the best points of one's own group and the worst of other groups. National and race wrongs thus are easily imagined and "nationalists" become angry at affronts, and rush a whole people into war. A 100 per cent nationalism plus a zero internationalism equals potential war in the same way that a too per cent loyalty to business interests plus a zero nationalism equals profiteering.
EGOISM AND GROUP CONFLICT
The desire for recognition and personal power causes leaders to drive groups into conflict. Napoleon did not love France so much as he loved himself. Group egoism likewise leads to conflict. Rome, Carthage, Athens, Alexandria fell into aggressive warfare whenever selfish leaders ruled or group egoism became rampant. Whenever "frenzied finance," "stubborn labor," "shrewd politics," or proselyting religion seek selfish power, conflict looms ahead.
PUGNACITY AND GROUP CONFLICT
One person's desire to achieve is likely to clash with that of other persons. The desire for security is often stimulated and habitualized into fighting tendencies. When "the woods" seem full of foes a person naturally becomes combative or flees. Defensive measures may easily become aggressive, for the line between defense and aggression is often vague and dependent on mental attitude. How long shall one wait before acting—until the enemy is at the door and at an advantage, when he is coming in the distance and can be ambushed, or before he has even started? Defense thus may easily reach out into offensive movements. The most "defensive" person may be he who has his offensive posts set out the farthest.
Pugnacity resolves itself into powerful units of human energy organized in habits of quick response and attack. Once man had to depend for defense on the quick use, of his fists, his club, or spear. Men who could not fight well in a hand-to-hand combat succumbed.
With the development of private property, organized defense became necessary. Tribal groups that were unskilled in fighting lost their heads,
( 315) were captured and enslaved, or were wiped out by the more powerful tribes whose fighting strength made them a law unto themselves and hence ruthless toward weaker tribes. The modern flood tide of this doctrine was reached in the teachings of such men as Nietzsche and Bernhardi.
The only groups that primitive fighting tribes respected were those whose prowess was established. Physical fighting propensities ruled the world for a thousand centuries. As a result fighting habits and traditions became greatly exaggerated.
COUNTER MOVEMENTS TO CONFLICT
Parallel to conflict a counter movement early originated. Among animals and primitive peoples small groups of individuals lived harmoniously together. Coöperation developed simultaneously with conflict, and the group spirit possessed a strong survival value. Within groups persons learned to respect difference of opinion and to build a code for settling disputes. Observance of this code prevented civil strife. The pistol duel is a sophisticated survival of personal conflicts in those groups which had established legal procedures.
ALLEGED GOOD IN ARMED CONFLICT
Despite the immeasurable suffering and destruction caused by armed conflict there are persons who champion it as being beneficial. It is said that military drill guarantees out-of-door life and the making of strong chest and leg muscles, that it counteracts slouchy habits of walking and standing, but these gains can be obtained through compulsory physical training. It is claimed that war develops habits of obedience and a respect for authority; but these are chiefly formal and can be developed through parental and educational means.
The arguments that the soldier "gains in courage," are thin. "War does not produce courage but consumes it."The ends to which bravery is stimulated lessens sympathy and hardens the heart. A Boy Scout régime could develop courage "without thought of war."
It is urged that the soldier develops "an enlarged morality," that instead of working for himself he joins with others in support of national programs, that from self service he is turned to self sacrifice. The man of wealth accepts "a dollar a day" job, and the backwoodsman or peasant with a local point of view leaves home to help make "the world safe for democracy." In reply, it has been said that war does not beget morality;
( 316) it uses it up. Look at the egoism, greed, and want of social spirit in warlike countries, whether they have come through a war "victoriously" or have been defeated—they demonstrate that war results in moral exhaustion. After the World War especially in the victorious belligerents, there was a going back in social attitudes and a resultant orgy of venal living.
The group which fights gains temporarily in unity. Dissident elements are brought together and at least temporarily united. Attacks from the outside drive people together. A common danger brought the southern German states more closely into a German federation when France declared war in 1870, and kept Ireland fighting on the side of England in the World War. National enemies are more effective unifying factors than the hope or the experience of common happiness which arises from economic prosperity.[1] This tendency is superficial and is usually followed by an over-growth of nationalism, a weakening of the middle class and an increase in internal dissension.
War temporarily bans softness and luxury, and favors a brutal type of virility. Before the World War the United States was showing signs of fatty degeneration. Plain living and thrift were being forgotten and self-indulgence was spreading. To a degree, war-strain reveals weak spots in the nation and evokes national interest, paternalistic to be sure, in all denizens. This national activity tends to become harsh, compulsory, undemocratic. By quick gestures it throws all who "reason why" behind the bars. Further, at the close of a successful war, a nation backslides into riotous, wasteful living; the profiteers in a defeated nation do likewise.
War necessitates organization, but of the autocratic type. Witness the way in which our country organized in 1917 and 1918 for war—through the draft law, the government operation of railroads, the Liberty Loan "drives." From such experiences a nation may learn valuable lessons in organizing in peace times for constructive and socialized ends. Most nations do retain some of the organization lessons learned in war, although suspicious of the socialistic and monopolistic tendencies war begets.
MORAL AND SOCIAL EVILS OF WARFARE
The evils of war are many. While the officer assumes responsibility, the man in the ranks is relieved of directive work and becomes machine-like. It is his business to obey and not to question or "to reason why." It has
( 317) been said that the less he thinks the better the soldier he will make. It is his duty "to do and die."
Military conflict tends first to make the officer and then the private autocratic. One day a big, handsome officer in a German regiment, wearing decorations of bravery, and receiving the personal commendations of the Kaiser, was approached by a little girl of five or six years old with a letter in her hand which she wished to post in a box behind the tall officer. She stood on her tiptoes but could not reach the box. She looked longingly for aid, and finally, summoning all her courage, she handed the letter to the officer. He took it mechanically, with one or two glances back and forth between it and her. His intellect was evidently less bright than his uniform. Presently the idea took shape in his brain that this slip of a girl had called on him for help. With an arrogant toss of his head and a contemptuous snap of his wrist, he threw the letter to the ground.[2]
The gigantic cost of warfare in dollars is insignificant compared to the cost in human suffering or to the brutalizing effects. The returned soldiers who went "over the top" refrain from describing the scenes in which they participated. "War confronts human beings with situations in which they must act inhumanly.[3] If you are going to kill systematically, it is necessary to hate systematically. After a war has continued for some time, hatred increases and ideals decline, and any measures which will help to bring victory or to postpone defeat are likely to be justified. War lying and calumniation rapidly increase. War is "brutal acknowledgment that nations have failed to live together harmoniously."[4]
War is usually followed by a period of increased immorality, brutality, and violence. Habits of brutality survive the declaration of peace, and "hold-ups" and murders by boys in their "teens" are of frequent occurrence.[5] Gun-play multiplies in the movies, and "the film of the Dempsey-Carpentier prize-fight, one of the most brutal exhibitions in recent times, is exploited for weeks in theatres before the admiring eyes of boys."[6]
This post-warfare violence goes back to wartime practices. In referring to the World War, Clarence Darrow says :
The highest rewards were offered for new and more efficient ways to kill. Every school was turned over to hate and preparation for war, and, of course, all the churches joined in the universal craze. God would not only forgive
(318) killing but reward those who were the most expert at the game. . . . The whole world talked of slaughter and devoted its energy to killing.[7]
Physical or mental violence begets more violence. Lynchings, night raiding, riots, religious persecution, war, all promote barbaric tendencies. Hooded night riders intimidate and resort to violence in attempting to keep Catholics or Jews from political or social power. On occasion, representatives of the law, even of sheriff's offices, are found among the hooded illegal executors of law, and easily slip back into the use of torture and manslaughter. When respect for law vanishes there is a return to secret and vicious methods of dealing with group offenders.
War puts violence into the common mind. Life "loses something of its sanctity. Outrages of the most fiendish sort are reported so often that people become callous to them."[8] War makes people excitable, mentally unstable, easily given to rash deeds. "The suppression of the normal life of man by military discipline results in an increased action of strong impulses."[9] By war suppression, the ignorant are made reckless ; and the intellectual are made radical.
"War is a profound and rapid maker of mental attitudes and of complexes that are quick to develop and slow to pass away."[10] By playing on the feelings war gets quick reactions, especially on the destructive sides of life, but these when once established, turn adamant.
National groups on the slightest provocation still glare at one another like wolves. They do not yet possess dependable "habits" for settling disputes by discussion, but are developing group heritages which have no place for bloody combat. Even such nations however must be ready to defend themselves until all the powerful nations lay aside policies of aggression.
Groups, especially large groups, fail to develop a sufficient sense of responsibility to prompt them to settle all their disputes by submitting them to impartial arbitrators. Corporations lack conscience; and morally, nations are atavistic. Big groups maintain secrecy, diplomacy, deception long after individuals submit their conflicts to discussion.
Courts of law have developed until they now rule the behavior of nearly every person even when he is moved to right his wrongs by violent means. It is only the sportive or criminal American who carries a revolver, or the immigrant from lands governed by ancient traditions who conceals
( 319) a dagger. Civilized people have refined the processes of living together peacefully and harmoniously ; they are learning as individuals to settle their conflicts by socialized means. When will they learn this lesson as groups?
OUTLAWING WAR
The evidences show that military conflict is one of the most destructive methods of solving controversies. The forecasts indicate that "the next war" will annihilate in a short time the civilization that has been painfully built up during the past centuries. The discovery of deadlier gases than were known during the World War, that have no odor or smoke, that are heavier than air, that can be carried and dropped over cities by a fleet of airplanes electrically sent out, operated, and brought back, thus annihilating the whole population of men, women, and children,[11] —this fact alone is enough to startle the unthinking devotee of nationalism into working for a higher and better method of settling conflicts between nations. "In the war-after-the-next" says E. A. Ross, "the two belligerents almost simultaneously will launch over the enemy territory a huge fleet of airplanes, dropping containers of poison gas. After having done a work-manlike job, each fleet will return home to find its people blotted out. The crews of the air fleets will be the sole survivors of the first offensive. Thereafter they will never complain of lack of elbow room in their own country."[12]
War conflicts cannot be ended merely by denouncing them, or by declaring that "this is a war to end war." Measures are needed for building up friendship among the nations of the world and of constructing international machinery that will run harmoniously, justly, and constructively. A world community spirit, discussed elsewhere by the writer,[13] is needed which will hold about the same relation to national patriotism that patriotism now holds to family loyalty. A thorough revision of the prevailing sense of national group loyalties is essential.[14] A way out is to substitute rational discussion for physical fighting.
The problem of outlawing military conflict becomes somewhat simpler when we remember that war is to a large extent a social malformation. Stupendous modern warfare is not a natural outgrowth of inherited tendencies to fight, but an artificial phenomenon, developing out of over-
( 320) population and the dividing of mankind into group units consciously fanned into racio-national hatreds.[15] To undo war, therefore, it is necessary to undo or to submerge the racio-national hatreds and the excess national patriotisms that have developed.[16] The traditions of making secret treaties must be broken up, and open frank discussion, such as occurred at the Washington Conference on Limitation of Armaments, substituted therefor. Nothing less than a world conscience can overrule military conflict.
Further, the combative impulses need to be spiritualized and socialized. As shown in an earlier chapter, the self-assertive and pugnacious tendencies cannot be eliminated, but they may be organized into habits seeking socially constructive ends. Impulses to dominate need to be turned aside from egoistically aggressive goals. When this distinction is made clear to every person and a social heritage of coöperative attitudes rules over conflict attitudes, conflict will be accorded its rightful level.
To outlaw war will not be enough. Conflicts on higher levels, but in subtler forms, are even more dangerous. S. J. Holmes has succinctly stated the point :
The Anglo-Saxon looks forward, not without reason, to the days when wars will cease; but without war, he is involuntarily exterminating the Maori, the Australian, and the Red Indian, and he has within his borders the emancipated but ostracized Negro, the English Poor Law, and the Social Question; he may beat his swords into plowshares but in his hands the implements of industry prove even more effective and deadly weapons than the swords.[17]
A most significant idea expressed by President Wilson was that the chief business of national diplomats is to organize the friendship of the world.[18] When the international friendship of the world, scarce as it may be, is organized into a world conscience and an organization with an effective program, then a recrudescence of violence may be prevented, and destructive efforts released for constructive work.
The centering of attention on moral and social equivalents of organized warfare is in line with progress, for by so doing it will be possible to obtain any virtues that war begets, and yet escape the terrific cost. Physical education can be expanded to provide all the valuable training which
( 321) military life gives to selected groups. Courage may be fostered by making life less easy for those who are now idling in frivolous pleasure, and by making the game of life more worth while for those who are struggling forward against overwhelming social and economic odds. Education in socialized citizenship for everyone will create a new sense of public responsibility. The socialization of religion will stimulate an increased coöperative spirit, and the widespread presentation of international and world needs and ideals will evoke a new world spirit that will eliminate military conflict and substitute for it a higher type, namely, socio-rational discussion.
RACIAL CONFLICTS
Racial struggles are examples of group conflict. They grow out of race prejudice, which is an antagonistic attitude of members of one race toward those of another. It is usually a non-scientific prejudgment. The prejudgment will rest on hearsay, experience with a few non-typical members of the other race, or on sneering remarks, rather than on solid evidence.
The social psychology of race prejudice reveals several causal elements. 1. An elemental fear of the strange underlies race prejudice. This is probably the only inherited factor in the phenomenon; the other causes come from the social environment. The individual who would survive must regard the stranger with caution. In primitive days, the stranger was necessarily assumed to be an enemy until he proved himself otherwise. The stranger today without credentials at the cashier's window is helpless, and the stranger at the front door of a private residence is viewed askance. The wanton practices of strangers have produced this elemental fear of the stranger.
2. The strange tribe is an enemy tribe—until proved otherwise. Race preservation demands that each race maintain its own values and its own entity. Consequently, each race has built up a set of beliefs which stress the virtues and overlook the vices of that race, and which exaggerate the weaknesses of other races. A race attaches "the idea of beauty to everything which characterizes their physical formation." The members of each race come to believe that their race is the best in the world.
The Englishman, the Italian, the German, the African Negro, the Eskimo, each declares that his race is the superior one of mankind. For example, the African Negro believes that brown and black are the most beautiful colors, and pities the Caucasian because of his pale, sickly hue. After living for a few months among the black races of Africa, white
( 322) Caucasian travelers have admitted a sense of shame because of the pale skins of their race—so powerful has been the opposite influence among the blacks. The Negress enhances her beauty by painting the face with charcoal while the Caucasian lady puts on a chalky white to increase her whiteness. The Negro considers his gods as black and his devils as white ; the Caucasian reverses the order. If there are thirty-five leading races in the world today, each fancying itself the best, then there are at least thirty-four self-deluded races.
3. Ignorance causes race prejudice. We must really know other races before we are entitled to a positive opinion as to the value of our own. Many leading ethnologists have concluded that all races are potentially similar, and that race differences are due to differences in physical and social environment. For example, a part of the Mongolian peoples moved to Japan, where they have undergone many changes. Others of the Mongolian peoples moved westward and finally through their descendants became established in Europe in Hungary, namely, the Magyars, where they are surrounded by a sea of Slays. In the United States, the Japanese and the Magyars meet today as immigrants, but neither of these groups of Mongolian brethren recognizes the other. In coming from the opposite sides of the earth and in circling the globe, these two branches of the same race have undergone widely different experiences and encountered different environments. Consequently, they are unlike.
False traditions and false education cause race prejudice. These can be corrected by a scientific study of the qualities of races in the light of their experiences. Upon examination, each race is found to be superior in some particular to other races. At their best and at their worst the members of all civilized races in our country are found to be pretty much alike.
4. Separation or isolation increases race prejudice. Separation breeds misunderstanding, false estimates, and hence, prejudice. In the congested districts of any of our large cities, the immigrant frequently learns of the United States at its worst, and likewise, the American sees the foreign-born at his worst. In the coal mines, the illiterate immigrant first of all learns or is compelled to learn American profanity—these vivid impressions remain with him and, unhappily, constitute a part of his Americanization.
In the Far East, Europeans do not associate with natives. In Yokohama, according to Melville E. Stone, on land which was donated to the foreign representatives for their consulates, the sign was placed: "No Japanese are permitted on these grounds." In a small park on the "Bund"
( 323) in Shanghai E. A. Ross reports the notice, "Dogs and natives are not allowed here."
While race preservation demands a certain degree of separation, yet race exclusiveness naturally generates prejudice, out of which wars may come. If there are no provisions for an increasing interchange of ideas and for opportunities for constructive contacts, friendship cannot spring up between nations.
5. Differences in race appearance foster prejudice. These variations are often superficial. We cannot judge the worth of a race by "the slant of the eye, the color of the skin, or the shape of the shin bone." We are still ignorant regarding real race distinctions, and hence need to guard against assuming that differences in appearances connote basic disparities. However, shrinking from those of strange appearance probably has an instinctive basis.
6. Differences in cultures magnify prejudices. If races have widely different histories and cultures, their ethnocentrism causes each to justify its own culture and to reject or even to sneer at the cultures of all the other races. Cultural differences may even assume apparent psychological contradictions, as in the conflicts between the Oriental and Occidental races. The opposing sets of psychological reactions are generally superficial, but on account of them race prejudices multiply and prevent the races from perceiving their common human nature.[19]
7. Competition engenders prejudice. The Chinese came to the United States upon invitation of private business interests. At first they were welcomed, but when their labor competed with American labor, hatred of them arose. Many people take a generous attitude toward the Negro, but if the Negro successfully competes for economic positions, then among the white persons who have lost, race hatred springs up. Both economic and social competition set off charges of latent prejudice.
Regarding race prejudice it may be said in conclusion that its isolating effects are matched only by its hatred effects. The race with the higher cultural standards desires to be isolated from the races with lower standards because it despises them. The "higher" races seem unable to compete in birthrate with the less advanced races, and hence in order to protect their control of affairs in a democracy may follow one or both of two methods. They may resort to race prejudice, exclusion, and suppression; or educate the "lower" races.
Race prejudice easily becomes one of "the most hateful and harmful" human sentiments. It is arbitrary, vicious, and narrowing; it culminates
(324) in lynchings, pogroms, and wars. One of America's able scholars has indicted it incisively :[20]
It has incited and excused cannibalism, warfare and slavery.
It has justified religious persecution and economic exploitation.
It has fostered tyranny, cruelty and the merciless waste of human life.
It has bred the spirit of caste ; and it has done most to create the
sweatshop and the slum.
It is the arch enemy of social peace throughout the world. . . . It is a
sinister factor in world politics.
Only through its removal shall we ever realize the vision of the dreamer—the
brotherhood of man.
RELIGIOUS CONFLICTS
The world has long been cursed with religious conflicts. Highly specialized religious leaders have become zealots. Their beliefs are the product of group or personal egoism, of dogmatizing, and of the craving to settle religious questions not only for their own religious group, but for everybody else as well. Religious beliefs, not always having scientific proof have fallen back upon the feelings for support. They quickly become prejudices, listening to no challenge or question. "Thus saith the Lord" harbors no reasoning attitude ; everything is settled. Progressive thinkers rebel at this and a conflict is on.
Religious conflicts have led to wars, persecutions, and the condemnation of
numberless souls to perdition. Bitter hatreds develop between those socially and
politically intertwined. As in all other types of group conflict, a scientific
attitude, a willingness to be reasonable, and the spirit of good will are the
only antidotes for religious conflicts. Christianity, the religion of love
par excellence, has produced notorious persecutions within its own ranks.
Until its members adjust their professions to the teachings of its Founder, it
cannot hope to become the religion of the whole world. As long as the charge of
"hypocrite" can with justice be hurled at it by the "heathen" and the "pagan,"
it cannot expect to win the world to itself.
INDUSTRIAL CONFLICTS
Industrial conflicts arise out of greed and the desire for recognition and power. The acquisition of economic power leads persons to build vast economic organizations which crush out the lives of the employees. Economic power intoxicates, blinds, and makes its possessor frantic or scheming
( 325) for more power. With it goes social power, and even political and religious power. Its momentum can scarcely be challenged. Its representatives fail to appreciate the attitudes of unfortunates, delude themselves into thinking themselves "superior," and so become the indirect cause of economic revolution.
The proletariats, not having had the advantages of education, travel, wide administrative experience, develop strong feeling reactions, biases, and hatreds of their own. They are quick to attack the evils of capitalism and to accept "a way out." As they develop thoughtful leaders, divisions occur over means of securing release from "wage slavery" and particularly over the ideal economic state to be sought. The followers, being untrained in scientific analysis follow here or there after any Moses who promises quick relief. Oppression is often so harsh that the oppressed is willing to take up with almost any panacea if it can be presented to him vigorously enough. Proletariat divisions and rash or even rabid struggles defeat them in conflict after conflict with their more calculating opponents. Differences in economic status produce the "classes" and lead to class wars.
SECTIONAL CONFLICTS
Geographic differences lead to sectional disputes. Mountain valley people, being without vision and stimulating social contacts, magnify slights and insults, while feuds smolder and blaze alternately. A warm climate and the cotton industry being possible in the Southern States, but not in the North where the factory system was adopted led to the struggle between slavery and abolition, and to the Civil War. The struggle between the manufacturing East and the farmers in the Middle West led in 1922 to the rise of an agricultural "bloc." Sectionalism usually ends in political, economic, racial or other forms of group conflict.
TACTICS OF CONFLICT [21]
A group in conflict resorts to methods which are pretty well standardized. (I) A primary method is for the group to get out its full strength. In the World War, rapid strides were made toward enlisting everybody, man, woman, and child, somewhere in the fighting machinery. All were asked first to do their bit, then their all. An evaluation of services was made and individuals shifted to positions of greatest fighting usefulness. (2) The group must inspire its own fighters to do their best (or their
( 326) worst against the "enemy"). Slogans are invented ; tales of horrible deeds by the "enemy" are concocted and enlarged upon. It becomes a matter of cutting your opponent's throat before he cuts yours. (3) The group seeks the support of neutral groups, or at least tries to keep them from joining the opponents' forces. False or real dangers are reported to them, diplomatic skill is used, and other desperate attempts made to strengthen the home group by acquiring the support of allies. (4) On the directly offensive side, propaganda is started to divide the opponents, and to break up the enemy's support. During the World War President Wilson delivered messages intended to divide Germany by winning popular support away from the autocratic rulers and generals. (5) All manner of means of deceiving the opposing group are devised. Before a football contest each team sends out "gloom" stories about hospital lists. Ambushes are manufactured. Morality is extended to include lying and deception of every kind. Each campaign manager is sure his candidate will win by "100,000 votes." (6) The opposing group is intimidated. Terrible threats are hurled at them. "Big Berthas" have been a traditional means of sending shivers of fear through "enemy" people. These six factors may be summarized under two headings : building up home group morale, and tearing down "enemy" group morale.
In a brief summary of group conflicts it may be said that in the long run they operate upon an ascending scale, namely, war, competition, discussion ;and give way to the rise of coöperation, alliance, and mutual aid. They arise out of social life, out of inherited culture and new programs, and run the gamut from brutal ruthlessness to that high type of corrective effort which is prompted by love. Conflicts tend downward toward brute levels, but may emerge in spiritualized contests for rendering service. In their lowest forms they are struggles to see who can deceive most, who can exploit most, who can shirk most; at their best they are contests to see who can serve his fellow men most.
PRINCIPLES
1. The most destructive type of intersocial stimulation is found in group conflicts, such as religious wars, racial conflicts, industrial disputes, political party strife, national wars.
2. Military conflict arises out of such factors as ignorance, prejudice, selfishness, nationalism, and pugnaciousness.
3. Primitive warfare gave a survival value to the fighting tribes.
4. Civil and criminal codes have developed as a substitute for individual combat, but national groups have not yet produced an effective international code of conduct.
( 327)
5. War creates temporary virtues, such as physical training, outdoor life, an increase in courage, an enlarged morality, an increased national unity, virility, organization; but these are often cancelled by adverse tendencies.
6. The evils of warfare include relieving the soldier of personal responsibility, brutalization, and hatreds, in addition to money costs, the suffering, and the deaths.
7. War is the lowest method of settling disputes, whereas discussion is the highest.
8. Race conflict and prejudice include an elemental fear of the strange, ignorance of the best qualities of competing races, mental separation and isolation, differences in physical appearance, differences in cultures, and the competitive spirit.
9. Religious conflicts arise out of narrow, intolerant views which become integrated with strong feelings into dogmas.
10. Industrial conflicts spring from the oppression and narrow-mindedness accompanying the desire for recognition and power when organized about the acquisition of private property.
11. Conflicts, political, racial, industrial, religious all resort to similar tactics, namely, of building up home group morale and of tearing down "enemy"group morale.
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. How is ignorance a cause of war?
2. Illustrate : Prejudice leads to war.
3. What is the relation of the desire for power to war?
4. Explain how patriotism is a causal element in war.
5. What is the basic element in pugnaciousness?
6. Explain : For primitive tribes war has a survival value.
7. Why have courts of law developed?
8. Why are national groups slow in developing a sense of international responsibility?
9. Why is war sometimes extolled as a social good?
10. What would you say is the chief constructive value in war?
11. What do you believe is the worst evil of war?
12. Explain : Modern war is artificial rather than natural.
13. What is the relation of prejudice to war?
( 328)
14. How is prejudice engendered?
15. Why are there so many bitter conflicts between religious groups?
PROBLEMS
1. Why do rational peoples resort to war rather than use discussion in order to settle national disagreements?
2. Why has international law not reached the standing of civil and criminal law within the nation?
3. Is national patriotism a scientific guide to national action under all circumstances?
4. Why do battles always take place between two armies rather than between four or five, each fighting against all the others?
5. Is the man who has invented a deadly instrument of war a social benefactor?
6. Why has war not been outlawed before now?
7. What can you as an ordinary individual do to outlaw war as a form of national conflicts?
8. Can one eliminate prejudice entirely?
9. Is prejudice ever a good thing?
10. "What psychic differences contribute to race antipathy?"
11. Illustrate "the cropping out of racial discrimination in the administration of justice."
12. What methods peculiar to themselves do religious groups use against each other?
13. What are the best values in group conflicts?
ASSIGNMENTS AND READINGS
Bird, C., "From Home to the Charge, a Psychological Study of the Soldier," Amer. Jour. of Psychology, 28: 315-48.
Case, Clarence M., "Instinctive and Cultural Factors in Group Conflicts," Amer. Jour. of Sociology, XXVIII: 1-20.
Ellis, G. W., "The Psychology of American Race Prejudice," Jour. of Race Development, 5: 297-315.
Kelsey, Carl, "War as a Crisis in Social Control," Publications of the American Sociological Society, XII: 27-45.
Lord, H. G., The Psychology of Courage (Luce, 1918), Ch. XI.
McLaren, A. D. "National Hate," Hibbert lour., 15: 407-18.
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Morris, C., "War as a Factor in Civilization," Popular Science Monthly, XLVII : 823-34.
Morse, J., "The Psychology of Prejudice," Intern. Jour. of Ethics, XVII: 490-506.
Nicolai, G. F., The Biology of War (Century, 1918).
Novicow, J., Les luttes entre societés humaines (Paris, 1904).
Pugh, E., "The Cowardice of Warfare," Fortnightly Rev., 99: 727-34.
Thomas, W. I., "The Psychology of Race Prejudice," Amer. Jour. of Sociology, 593-611: IX.
Todd, A. J., Theories of Social Progress (Macmillan, 1918), Ch. XIX.
Stratton, G. M., "The Docility of the Fighter," Intern. Jour. of Ethics, 26: 368-76.
Williams, J. M., Principles of Social Psychology (Knopf, 1922).
