Social Psychology
Chapter 17: Interference and Conflict
Edward Alsworth Ross
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Two kinds of conflict
LIKE systems of waves in air or water spreading from different centres of disturbance, incompatible forms of thought or feeling or action, as they are progressively propagated outward through space or downward through time, must eventually encounter and interfere with one another. There comes a moment when cuneiform writing, spreading out from the Euphrates Valley, meets and is checked by the triumphant diffusion of the Phoenician characters, parent of all our own writing; when the spreading worship of Christ comes into collision with the expanding worship of Mithras; when Hindu religious myths, beliefs, and practices, peacefully descending through the centuries from father to son, and from pundit to pupil, find their course blocked by a religion that, having completed the conquest of the Occident, is being carried by missionary zeal into the very citadels of Oriental civilization; when coffee, introduced into Europe by the Turks and spreading upward from the Southeast, meets the expanding empire of tea, whose capitals are England and Russia. Such interferences lead to conflict, of which we can distinguish two chief kinds - silent conflict and vocal conflict, i.e., discussion.
Prestige against prestige
Silent conflict is sometimes the struggle of two prestiges. The outcome of the competition between the French language and the English in the Egyptian schools has
(297) turned mainly on the relative prestige of France and England in the eyes of the Egyptians. The brows both of Christianity and of Theosophy are white with the hoar of antiquity, and in many minds their conflict will be decided by their comparative prestige. So, in the interference of the styles of costume launched by rival footlight favorites, of the examples of vying social leaders in respect to note-paper or parlor recitals, of the interpretations of Hamlet by great actors (Garrick, Kean, Booth, Irving, Mounet-Sully), of the rowing methods of two champion oarsmen, of the unlike vocalization of two popular singers, the result may hinge entirely on relative personal prestige. Whenever social superiority and subordination are marked, merit is little considered, and it is comparative prestige that is likely to decide the day. Hence, in a hierarchized society, or in the dealings of advanced nations with rude peoples, everything depends on the example set by those looked up to; and all manner of ascendencies flow from that which confers prestige, viz., military and political ascendency. The magnificence of the Czar's coronation, the splendor of the Durbar at Delhi, aids the ascendency of empire over tribal traditions and feudatory native dynasties, and is, therefore, a great procurer of obedience.
Prestige against merit
Again, conflict is sometimes a duel between a prestige and a merit. This often is the situation presented when the new collides with the old. The Dyaks of Borneo used to cut straight into a log, the U-chop. When they came into contact with the easier V-chop of the Europeans, they wanted to use it, but their medicine men told them it would anger the gods; so, for a while, they employed the V-chop only when alone in the forest, safe
(298) from observation. So, in the struggle between suttee and no-suttee, the Chinese bandaged foot and the natural foot, the hour-glass waist and the natural waist, the prestige is all on one side. When we hesitate whether to write "waistcoat" or "vest," "labour" or "labor," the issue lies between precedent and convenience. In our own society, however, novelty is not without a certain prestige, so that the innovation wins the faddists for nothing; but by far the greater number of people can be impressed only by its merits.
The conflict between new and old
The relation of victor and vanquished in such conflicts brings out clearly the fallacy of the recurring notion that the regression or decay of social forms is the counterpart of their progression or growth; the illusion that a style of painting, an industrial process, a language, or a religion, has a natural old age as it has a natural youth. The fact is that a social form spreads like a system of undulations, radiating from one centre, which do not return on themselves unless an obstacle is encountered; or like a living species which expands until the limits of its habitat are reached, and then becomes stable. A species of plan or animal does not die, it is exterminated by some better adapted competitor; a machine or a dogma does not die,. it is displaced by some new and superior rival. The Divine Right of Kings, the Verbal Inspiration of he Scriptures, cujus regio ejus religio, the Ptolemaic system, and the laisse faire policy succumbed, not because they had lost their former congeniality with the human mind, but because they could not compete successfully with certain later modes of thought.
The spread or progress of a practice or belief is usually due to some excellence in that practice or belief. Occa-
Why the old is vanquished
(299) -sionally the regress is due to the loss of this excellence, i.e., to changes in the social situation which deprive it of its fitness. Thus indissoluble marriage is a misfit as soon as women have become individualized and economically emancipated. The town-meeting plan of government exhibits none of its vaunted merits, once the town has become populous. With the differentiation in the forms of property, the old general property tax becomes a scandal. Generally, however, the decay of a social form is due simply to the encroachments of a successful rival. Sometimes the regress of A is nothing but the obverse of the progress of its substitute B. Thus, the decline curve of stage-coaches is just the growth curve of railroads, turned upside down. So, in the losing battle of sail with steam, of wooden ships with iron ships, of church education with secular education, the graph of the decadence of the one answers to the graph of the progress of the other.
Merit against merit
Finally, the duel between two forms may be decided wholly on relative merits. When we hesitate whether to say "telegraph" or "wire," "exposition" or "exhibition," "rubbers" or "overshoes," prestige is not a factor, for the thing in mind is recent. So, the struggle between banjo and accordion, decimal fractions and vulgar fracions, French quotation marks and English quotation marks, sloping handwriting and upright handwriting, cane sugar and beet sugar; the English saddle and the American saddle, is decided essentially upon the basis of comparative excellence.
Among the means of deciding the silent struggle are authority, persecution, example, observation, and trial.
Authority refers to the one man, or small body of men,
(300) having the power to end a struggle summarily. In innumerable minds of the fourth century A.D. the issue between the old faith and the new was settled by the conversion of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity. The will of a few score of men imposed the gold standard on Russia, whereas, in the United States, the matter had to be argued before a jury of thirteen million voters. In one church "Rome speaks," and there is a sudden silence; in another the battle goes on until settled by the vote of an (Ecumenical Council or a General Assembly; in a third it continues until the members have made up their minds for one side or the other, and the conflict dies down for lack of fresh material.
For thinkers of a certain school, the intervention of the benevolent autocrat, or the initiative of an enlightened aristocracy is an ideal short-cut to social reform. It seems so easy for the social philosopher to set things right simply by winning over to his ameliorative projects a Frederick the Great or a Napoleon. The fiasco of the reforming Emperor Joseph II of Austria shows, however, what is likely to happen when struggle, instead of agitating the minds of the entire people, is confined to the mind of an autocrat.
The case of Joseph II
" He was penetrated by the characteristic ideas of the eighteenth century as to the duties of an absolute monarch, and began at once to give effect to them in a fearless and almost revolutionary spirit. His first step was to combine the various nationalities subject to him into a single state with thirteen administrative districts. He refused to be crowned king of Hungary, and would not summon the Hungarian diet, insisting that the country should be governed as a province, and causing German to be used as
(301) the official language. Among other reforms he proclaimed the abolition of serfdom, substituted various punishments for the capital penalty, established common tribunals, and issued new codes based on the principle that all citizens are equal before the law. He transferred the censorship of books from the clergy to laymen of liberal sympathies, and granted complete freedom to journalism. He instituted public libraries and observatories, founded a medical college in Vienna, a university in Lemberg, and schools for the middle classes in various parts of the monarchy, and encouraged art by offering prizes in connection with the academy of the plastic arts. Industry and trade he fostered by destroying many monopolies, by aiding in the establishment of new manufactures, by raising Fiume to the position of a free harbor, and by opening the Danube to his subjects from its source to the Black Sea. . . . In 1781 he issued an edict of toleration, granting freedom of worship to all ]Protestants and to members of the Greek Church; and between 1782 and 1790 about 700 monasteries were closed, the members of religious orders being reduced from 63,000 to 27,000. All these changes w--re well meant, but the emperor, in the ardor of his philanthropy, shot too far ahead of the prevailing sentiment of his people. Moreover, his good intentions were often rendered fruitless by unskilful or unsympathetic subordinates. In nearly every part of the monarchy discontent soon manifested itself, and some of the inhabitants of Tyrol broke into open rebellion. The Hungarians bitterly resented the. suppression of their ancient privileges, and in 1787 the emperor's new institutions led in several districts to a furious conflict between the peasantry and the nobles. The estates of the Austrian Netherlands per-
(302) -sistently opposed the execution of his schemes, the clergy being especially active in stirring up popular indignation. . . . In Hungary there was so dangerous an agitation that in January, 1790, Joseph had to undo almost every. thing he had attempted to accomplish in that country during the previous nine years; he succeeded only in maintaining the decrees by which he had abolished serfdom and established toleration. Thus his last days were rendered miserable by the conviction that his career had been a failure.
Let a conflict be fought out
An abrupt, Jovian intervention is, therefore, not always so beneficent as it promises to be. It is infinitely more trouble to convert a people than to win over a monarch, but the results are more lasting. Though large bodies move slowly, they rarely recoil. The submitting of onward measures to million-headed Demos looks clumsy indeed, and yet it is democratic societies that to-day are the most consistently progressive. So, it may be better for society to rely on its own powers than to be forced ahead by a reforming Numa or Solon. The presence of an authority having the right to decide for all, cuts the nerve of propagandist zeal and interrupts the education of the people. Therefore, better free speech and free press than the enlightened autocrat. That monarch does best who, instead of introducing social reforms offhand, provides those educational agencies that build his people up to the point where they can reform matters for themselves.
Then it does not break out afresh
Experience shows, moreover, that, if struggle goes on to a finish, there is often no root of bitterness left, and no possibility of the resurrection of error. In this country, the fight for public education, for religious freedom,
(303) for separation of church and state, against imprisonment for debt, and against the property qualification of the suffrage went on to a finish, and hence it is impossible to reopen those questions here.
Persecution rarely can settle conflicts
Persecution is another inviting "short-cut" to unanimity; but sometimes it is not so short after all. For persecution interrupts the other processes that are working in your favor. Once resort to violence, and you can no longer persuade. Persecution causes the persecuted to draw together, encourage one another, and associate only with one another. It closes them to the influences of reason and interest that otherwise would work upon them and win them over. Spain's attempt to drive the Moriscos into orthodoxy made them a sullen, disaffected mass which finally had to be deported, to the lasting injury of the country.[1] In Alsace-Lorraine, Germany chose the attractive method of influencing the struggle of German with French. In Schleswig-Holstein, Prussia adopted the coercive method of insuring the victory of German over Danish. The result is progress in the former case, defeat in the latter. The fact is, in all culture struggles, resort to brute force invigorates the thing aimed at. " The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." Antiochus's rash attempt to force Hellenism upon the Jews brought on the Maccabean revolution, and made the Jews impervious to the Greek culture. Latimer's prophecy to Ridley when he was led out to be burned under Bloody Mary, "We shall this day light such a candle in England as shall not soon be put out," is verified in the anti-Catholic bias of England to this day. Russia's ruthless endeavor to drive the juggernaut car of
(304) her civilization over the little peoples - the Esthonians, Letts, Poles, Finns, and Georgians - has been a ghastly failure.
The psychology of martyrdom
It is not that the persecuted are right. Martyrdom proves the truth of nothing. Any body of homogeneous people cruelly persecuted for some innocent thing will produce martyrs. If a tyrant commands men who shave to let the beard grow, there will presently arise a little fanatical sect of " shavers," and here and there one will burn at the stake rather than give up the razor. The martyr spirit, then, is a mark not of truth, but of collective reaction. This is why religious persecution, though it sometimes succeeds (Spain, Bohemia, France, the extirpation of Buddhism in Hindustan), is always a harder task than the persecutor anticipated. Moreover, he runs the terrible risk of interfering on the wrong side after all. The tragic consequences of the Church's persecution of Roger Bacon are thus stated by White:[2] --
"Sad is it to think of what this great man might have given to the world had ecclesiasticism allowed the gift. He held the key of treasures which would have freed mankind from ages of error and misery. With his discoveries as a basis, with his method as a guide, what might not the world have gained! Nor was the wrong done to that age alone; it was done to this age also. The nineteenth century was robbed at the same time with the thirteenth. But for that interference with science the nineteenth century would be enjoying discoveries which will not be reached before the twentieth century, and even after it. Thousands of precious lives shall be lost, tens of
(305) thousands shall suffer discomfort, privation, sickness, poverty, ignorance, for lack of discoveries and methods which, but for this mistaken dealing with Roger Bacon and his compeers, would now be blessing the earth.
"In two recent years sixty thousand children died in England and in Wales of scarlet fever; probably quite as many died in the United States. Had not Bacon been hindered, we should have had in our hands by this time the means to save two-thirds of these victims; and the same is true of typhoid, typhus, cholera, and that great class of diseases of whose physical causes science is just beginning to get an inkling. Put together all the efforts of all the atheists who have ever lived, and they have not done so much harm to Christianity and the world as has been done by the narrow-minded, conscientious men who persecuted Roger Bacon, and closed the path which he gave his life to open."
Example, Observation, Trial. - A farmer may favor one of two rival reapers, (1) because leading farmers champion and introduce it, (2) because observation of the experience of others shows its superiority, or (3) because he has tried both and found it the better. These three are the leading factors in silent struggles, whether of two models of bicycle, two styles of house decoration, two types of sport, two standards of journalism, or two ideals of manhood.
There is, however, a tendency for silent struggle to become vocal. Rival authorities appeal to argument; the persecutor uses reasons as more effective with some than force; example is reenforced by persuasion; observation leads to formal comparison; calculation takes the place of trial. The rival arguments, reasons, persuasives, comparisons, and calculations amount to discussion.
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SUMMARY
Incompatible beliefs or practices propagated from different points in time or space eventually come into conflict with each other.
The conflict may be either of two types -silent conflict or discussion.
Silent conflict presents three cases-prestige against prestige, prestige against merit, merit against merit.
The regress of a belief or practice is not the reverse of its previous progress, but the obverse of the progress of its successful rival.
Possible factors in the issue of a silent conflict are authority, persecution, example, observation, and trial.
Authority may decide conflict speedily, but its settlement is not always lasting.
Persecution is costly and checks the milder influences that help to settle a conflict.
Silent conflict tends to pass over into discussion.
EXERCISES
I. Show the social psychology under the maxim, " Nothing succeeds like success."
2. Show that conflict - whether silent or vocal - between prestiges, tends to broaden out; between merits, tends to narrow down.
3. What is the chief cause of the death of institutions in a dynamic society? In a progressive society?
4. Is there more place for authority in settling public questions than in settling private questions?
5. Ought the conflict between types of water filtration or sewage disposal or armor plate to be settled by the voters or by authority? What class of public questions should be settled by the voters?
6. Is it persecution to punish a man for relying on Christian Science or " absent treatment " when his wife or his child is seriously ill?
7. Is it wrong to punish those who persist in folly that hurts only themselves, or merely inexpedient?
