Social Psychology
Chapter 18: Discussion
Edward Alsworth Ross
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Discussion an abbreviator of conflict
Doomed causes hate discussion
SOMETIMES a struggle can be summarily closed by invoking some authority acknowledged by both sides; for example, the Pope on dogma, Tyndall on spontaneous generation, the Prince of Wales on some point of etiquette. Oftener, however, it is discussion that settles A struggle when it reaches an acute stage. For discussion hurries conflicts to a conclusion. Sixty years ago the silent struggle between man and woman became vocal, and the result has been a hasty removal of many barriers that hemmed in woman, and a rapid improvement in her social position. In the United States, African slavery would, no doubt, have died out in time by the silent operation of economic and moral forces, but discussion greatly hastened its end. Since , about a generation ago, a few bold spirits began to ask " Why?" in public, the religious tabu on theatre, dancing, card-playing, secular literature and art, has loosened more than in all the previous interval since the Puritan Commonwealth. So, the disapproval of drinking has developed more in the seventy years since Father Mathew began the temperance agitation, than in the two centuries before. Hence, all losing sides dread discussion, for it shortens their lease of life. Silence is for them a kind of reprieve. Their instinct, then, is to choke off discussion at all hazards. The geocentrists got the Papal Index for nearly two hundred years to forbid
(308) the faithful from reading "all books which affirm the motion of the earth." The Index of the books absolutism forbids to be printed or circulated in Russia reads like a list of the monumental works of modern research and thought. The tottering Old Régime in France persecuted and hounded the Encyclopedists. The German monarchists long sought to withstand the rising tide of social democracy with a "law of associations and meetings." The French militarists endeavored to gag discussion of the Dreyfus case. In the lower South after 1835 all open criticism of slavery was prohibited, and on the border desperate means were taken to silence the abolitionists.[1] In the state of Delaware and in the city of Detroit frantic attempts have been made by rich taxdodgers to throttle single-tax speakers.
Curative power of free discussion
Conversely, the side that feels sure of its case does not persecute. Therefore it is safe to infer that the cause which courts publicity and discussion has time on its side, whereas the cause that ducks, slinks, or applies the gag,
(309) ought to rest under suspicion. Seeing that no great wrong can long survive open discussion, we may characterize free speech, free assemblage, and free press as the rights preservative of all rights. Safeguard these fundamentals, and the rest must come. This is why free government, although it is by no means the same thing as popular government, is usually the vestibule to it. When discussion is free, all use of violence to change the personnel or the form of government is criminal, seeing that a peaceful way lies open to the reformer. When, on the other hand, brute force is employed to prevent an unhappy people from organizing their minds into that spiritual structure we call public opinion, they have as much right to strike out destructively as the householder who wakes to find the fingers of a burglar closing on his throat.
Growing copiousness of discussion
Discussion presupposes mental contact, hence is favored by modern facilities for communication, -- press, telegraph, cheap travel, cheap books, free libraries, etc. These substitute discussion of principles and policies for petty gossip, and attention to general concerns for attention to private, family, or neighborhood concerns. There is to-day a far greater amount of fructifying discussion than ever before, and it touches more topics, plays over more of life. That "nowadays no subject is sacred" means that every belief, practice, and institution is called upon to justify itself. Male sexual license, the indissoluble marriage, the marriage bond itself, are required to furnish reasons. It is coming to be recognized that there is nothing of concern to human beings which may not profitably be discussed in the right spirit, by the right persons, at the right time. This is why the downfall of
(310) an effete dogma, the abandonment of an unwise policy, a harmful practice, a vicious custom, or a wasteful process, is prompter now than ever before. This explains the miracles of transformation we witness in human relations and arrangements. It is because that great radical, Discussion, invades every department of life and hurries to a close long-smouldering conflicts, that ours is such a revolutionary epoch. "Age of endless talk," sneers the cynic, forgetting that, but for the copious talk and print, it could not be an age of reason and redress. Well has it been said:
Talk is the great changer of opinion
" It is safe to suppose that one-half of the talk of the world on subjects of general interest is waste. But the other half certainly tells. We know this from the change in ideas from generation to generation. We see that opinions which at one time everybody held became absurd in the course of half a century, - opinions about religion and morals and manners and government. Nearly every man of my age can recall old opinions of his own, on subjects of general interest, which he once thought highly respectable, and which he is now almost ashamed of having ever held. He does not remember when he changed them, or why, but somehow they have passed away from him. In communities these changes are often very striking. The transformation, for instance, of the England of Cromwell into the England of Queen Anne, or of the New England of Cotton Mather into the New England of Theodore Parker and Emerson, was very extraordinary, but it would be very difficult to say in detail what brought it about, or when it began. Lecky has some curious observations, in his 'History of Rationalism,' on these silent changes in new beliefs apropos of
(311) the disappearance of the belief in witchcraft. Nobody could say what had swept it away, but it appeared that in a certain year people were ready to burn old women as witches, and a few years later were ready to laugh at or pity any one who thought old women could be witches. 'At one period,' says he, 'we find every one disposed to believe in witches; at a later period we find this predisposition has silently passed away.' The belief in witchcraft may perhaps be considered a somewhat violent illustration, like the change in public opinion about slavery in this country. But there can be no doubt that it is talk - somebody's, anybody's, everybody's talk - by which these changes are wrought, by which each generation comes to feel and think differently from its predecessor. No one ever talks freely about anything without contributing something, let it be ever so little, to the unseen forces which carry the race on to its final destiny Even if he does not make a positive impression, he counteracts or modifies some other impression, or sets in motion some train of ideas in some one else, which helps to change the face of the world. So I shall, in disregard of the great laudation of silence which filled the earth in the days of Carlyle, say that one of the functions of an educated man is to talk, and, of course, he should try to talk wisely." [2]
When controversy is fruitful
In areas where, after all, feeling or instinct, not reason, decides, discussion can do little to accelerate the issue. De gustibus non est disputandum. Barren are discussions of Italian opera and German opera, aestheticism, Whitman's poetry, Whistler's "arrangements," race amalgamation. For here the matter is one of taste, and a common basis is lacking. The best type of discussion is that
(312) between parties who agree as to ends and differ only as to means, because we have feelings about ends but are cold-blooded in choosing means. "Shall we by law prohibit child labor?" Compare two friends of children discussing this, one a believer in state action, the other a believer in trade union action, with the discussion of it between a philanthropist and a factory owner. "Shall we retain the Philippines?" Compare discussion of this between two men whose aim is the welfare of the natives, with the discussion between one of these men and an exploiter whose maxim is, "The Philippines for the Americans!" "Shall we announce from the pulpit the results of the Higher Criticism?" yields a very different discussion between two lovers of truth than between one who cares only for truth and one who cares only for dogma. "Shall we adopt the direct primary?" is a much more fertile topic if discussed by two friends of good government than if discussed by a friend of good government and a corrupt boss, When means or methods are in question, we appeal to the judgment; when ends are in question, we aim at the feelings. Thus, 'the prohibitionist tries to inspire disgust for the saloon. His opponent endeavors to arouse resentment against " interference with personal liberty."
When controversy is profitless
Without a common basis discussion becomes wrangling, the effort not to win over opponents, but to win neutrals. Hence, ridicule and vilification, coining of epithets, catch phrases, and slogans. Hence, appeals to passion and prejudice, such as " Do you want your daughter to marry a nigger ? " " Vote as you shot -against the South!" "Vote for the Liberal and you vote for the Boer!" "Who will haul down the flag?" 'God-
(313) -less" public schools! "Freedom of contract." "Dreyfusards." "Little Englanders." An inventory of the stock appeals of a political campaign shows how inapt is the phrase "campaign of education." The really profitable discussion of political questions is that which occurs before the subsidized newspapers and the hired spellbinders have filled the air with dust.
Theory of the theological polemic
The reason why theological controversy so fatally descends into polemic is that all discussion of things supernal contains the seeds of degeneration. It is owing to this that we hear of an odium theologicum, but not of an odium scientificum. Theologians are certainly as just and kindly men as scientists, but after they have marshalled in vain their texts and their reasonings, they have nothing else to appeal to. When the scientist has exhausted his ammunition without effect, he can go after fresh evidence. It is not easy to settle by observation the question of the open Polar Sea, the sources of the Nile, or the canals on Mars; but it is child's play compared with getting decisive facts on the question of the nature of the Godhead, or the future state of unbaptized infants. Compare the battle between trans-substantiationists and con-substantiationists, homo-ousians and homoi-ousians, with the debate between the Neo-Lamarckians and the Neo-Darwinians. When the naturalists found they could not decide the question without more facts, they declared a truce and went to cutting off the tails of successive generations of mice !
The path of degeneration of discussion
Sometimes, as in the struggle between two prejudices, tastes, or prestiges, both disputants wrangle; but, when a merit is pitted against a prestige or a sentiment, one side argues while the other vituperates. This is plainly
(314) seen in the debates on the social recognition of negroes, the recognition of the labor unions, the regulation of corporations, the taxation of site values, and women suffrage. In the discussing of vivisection, compulsory vaccination, the segregation of vice, the legal control of prostitution, the census-taking of disease, etc., one side appeals to reason, the other to sentiment. Beyond wrangling lie the appeals that rally the partisans of either side, and the passing of the struggle from the realm of social psychology into that of pugilistics.[3]
Breaking up of social lumps hastens assimilation
(315)
The efficacy of discussion in abbreviating conflicts I depends on the access of people to its influence. When I folks are matted together into impermeable strata, classes or communities, the ferment of discussion operates only on the exterior of the mass. Chinatown, French Canada, Liberia, the Ghetto, the slums, the Black Belt in the South, the Hungarian districts in Pennsylvania, the Mennonite villages in North Dakota, - these reveal what happens when social islands are formed. As pulverizing a lump of lime hastens its slaking, as comminuting food aids digestion, as splintering wood accelerates its combustion, so there is a speedier termination of the conflict between the peculiar and the general when social lumps are broken up. Such has been the effect of stirring a Gentile leaven through the Mormon communities. Outside the cotton belt, slavery brought the white and black races into close personal contact and hastened the civilizing of the blacks. Since emancipation there has been a marked tendency to segregate,[4] resulting in spots in conditions almost Liberian.
The trade union as Americanizer of the immigrant
The French Canadian is inaccessible to modern ideas at home, but he succumbs in the Massachusetts factory town where discussion and example have a fair chance at him. The effects of a trade union in detaching the immigrant from his clan organizations and exposing him to the play of Americanizing influences is thus set forth by Colonel Wright:[5] " In every trade union, however conservative, there are members who will occasionally get the floor and advise their hearers to vote high wages and shorter hours at the ballot box. As the groups
(316) of Slovaks gather around after the business is over to have these things explained to them, many get their first real idea of what the ballot and election day mean, and the relation of these to the Government itself. In their own home countries the two essential, if not only, elements of the peasant and agricultural laborer's mind is to believe and obey, or follow. Advantage is taken of this fact here by clan politicians, as well as the clan leader in every department. Once the leader can make these people believe in him, he thinks for the entire group, and insists that their duty consists in following his lead implicitly. Necessarily, the trade union, in order to get them to break away from the leader that opposed the union on industrial lines, would be compelled to urge them to consider their own personal and group interests as wage workers; to think and act for themselves along lines where they know the real conditions better than any one else, and certainly better than their leader in a child insurance society, or something else as remote. Here, too, are the first germs of what may be called departmental thinking implanted in their minds that is, that while a leader may be worthy of their confidence in one thing, it does not necessarily follow that he is so in some other class of interests.
" It is doubtful if any organization other than a trade union could accomplish these things, for only the bread-and-butter necessity would be potent enough as an influence to bring these people out of the fixed forms and crystallizations of life into which they have been compressed. Certain it is that no other organization is attempting to do this work, at least not by amalgamation, which is the only way assimilation can be secured among these various foreign elements. The drawing of these people away from
(317) their petty clique leaders and getting them to think for themselves upon one line of topics, namely, the industrial conditions and the importance of trade organization, result in a mental uplift. The only way they can pull a Slovak away from his leader is to pull him up until he has gotten above his leader along the lines of thought they are working on."
Three phases of vocal conflict
In discussion three phases of conflict may be observed, corresponding to the possible relations between two incompatible beliefs or desires.[6]
I. A denies or opposes B, but B does not deny or oppose A. - This is seen when A is an established dogma or institution, B an innovation. The book that gave the world the heliocentric theory crept forth with a grovelling preface to the effect that Copernicus had propounded the doctrine of the earth's movement not as a fact, but as a hypothesis ! Galileo sought to reconcile the discoveries of his telescope with the Scriptures, and when he brought out his Dialogo signed a stultifying preface in which the Copernican theory was virtually exhibited as a play of the imagination. Boscovich, obedient Jesuit that he was, said: " I regard the earth as immovable; nevertheless for simplicity in explanation I will argue as if the earth moves; for it is proved that of the two hypotheses the appearances favor this idea." The theologians, on the other hand, exaggerated the incompatibility of heliocentrism with their system. They declared that the former " vitiates the whole Christian plan of salvation," " casts suspicion on the doctrine of the incarnation," " tends toward infidelity," " is of all heresies the most abominable, the most pernicious, the most scandalous. Argument against the immortality
(318) of the soul, the existence of God, and the incarnation, should be tolerated sooner than an argument to prove that the earth moves." The author was denounced as "heretic," "infidel," and "atheist." In the same spirit the theologian denounces early geology as "infidel," while geology professes no antagonism whatever to the Church. The mass of belief behind infant science is so little that priests, eager to crush science while it is yet weak, accentuate the contradiction between them; while science, conscious of its weakness, avoids conflict and pleads only to be let alone. The same attitude is seen in certain of the early Fathers who sought to propitiate their Pagan neighbors by emphasizing the agreements between Greek Philosophy and the Christian belief. So the "rights of man" professed nothing subversive at first; while the privileged orders instantly declared war on them. So new tastes timidly introduce themselves alongside the older needs; but conservatives promptly oppose "the newfangled foreign luxuries" as Cato denounced Greek works of art and Asiatic refinements.
2. A and B mutually deny and oppose one another. This is the phase of fiercest contention, when the new feels strong enough to throw off the mask and declare its downright incompatibility with the old. Then Luther succeeds Erasmus; Le Place, Galileo; Voltaire, Descartes; Strauss, Reimarus; Huxley, Darwin; and Danton, Mirabeau. Astronomy, finding a current in its favor, no longer pretends to furnish confirmation for dogmas which respond only with anathemas. Science declares war on the traditional cosmogony and boldly admits that theology and science cannot be reconciled. So democracy takes the field against privilege, and labor
(319) avows that it aims at nothing less than securing for the laborer " the whole produce."
3. A does not deny or oppose B, but B denies or opposes A. - The confidence in the methods of science at last becomes so great that theology no longer dares accentuate its contradiction. It strives to compromise with science, clutches eagerly at "scientific" proofs,[7] and seeks to rebuild its shattered dogmas in the region as yet unsubdued by advancing science. Divines eagerly " reconcile " Genesis and Geology, but geologists go on with their work careless whether the two are reconciled or not. Theology forms all sorts of amalgam with science; but science declines even to discuss, and passes by in silent scorn the horde of bastard theories. So, nowadays, selfish privilege no longer openly opposes democracy, but champions "imperialism." Capitalism no longer flouts the demand for legislation to protect labor, but pleads " constitutional limitations." Men no longer denounce woman as "strong-minded" and "unwomanly" when she asks for equal opportunities, but profess that the hampering restrictions upon her are in the interest of woman herself!
Discussion undergoes an evolution
Such are the phases to be noticed in a particular logical duel. But the product of one of these duels becomes the starting-point of the next, so that there is a certain evolution of discussion to be discerned in the history of a civi-
(320) -lization. The cause and course of this evolution cannot be better stated than in the words of Tarde: [8] -
"It is only after the mental discussion between contradictory ideas within the same mind has ended, that any verbal discussion is possible between two men who have solved the question differently. Similarly, if verbal, written, or printed discussions between groups of men, and groups that are ever widening, take the place of verbal discussion between two men, it is because the more limited discussion has been brought to an end by some relative and temporary agreement, or some sort of unanimity. These groups are first split up into an endless multitude of little coteries, clans, churches, forums, and schools, which combat one another; but at length, after many polemics, they are welded into a very small number of great parties, religions, parliamentary groups, schools of philosophy, and schools of art, which engage one another in mortal combat. Was it not thus that the Catholic faith became gradually established? In the first two or three centuries of the Church's history, countless discussions, always intense and often bloody, were waged among the members of each local church, ending in their agreeing upon a creed; but this creed, disagreeing in certain particulars with those of neighboring churches, gave rise to conferences and provincial councils, which solved the difficulties, excepting that they occasionally disagreed with one another, and were forced to carry their disputes higher up, to national or oecumenical councils. . . . The unity of legal codes has long since been accomplished in an analogous manner: countless local customs have arisen, settling thousands of individual discussions concerning
(321) rights (though not all, as the court records prove) ; these customs, coming into conflict with one another, have been reconciled by certain sectional customs, which have finally been replaced by uniform legislation. The unity of science, operating slowly over a wide field, through a succession of discussions, alternately settled and reopened, among scientists and scientific schools, would give rise to similar reflections. . . .
The secular achievements of discussion
"The objection may possibly be raised that as races become more civilized they tend more and more to discussion, and that, far from taking the place of private discussion, our public discussions, polemics of the press, and parliamentary debates only add fuel to them. But such an objection would be without force. For if savages and barbarians discuss little (which is fortunate, since most of their discussions degenerate into quarrels and combats), it is because they scarcely speak or think at all. When we consider the very small number of their ideas, we ought to be surprised that they clash so often, relatively speaking; and we should marvel to find men with so few different interests so quarrelsome. On the other hand, a thing which we ought to wonder at, but which we scarcely notice, as a matter of fact, is this: that in our own civilized cities, despite the great current of ideas sweeping over us in conversation and reading, there are, on the whole, so few discussions, and these so lacking in warmth. We should be amazed to find that men who think and talk so much contradict one another so seldom, to see that they accomplish so much and clash so little; just as we should wonder at seeing so few carriage accidents in our streets, which are so animated and crowded, or at seeing so few wars break out in this era of complex and far-reaching
(322) international relations. What is it, then, that has brought us into agreement on so many points? It is the three great productions that have been gradually wrought out by centuries of discussion; namely, Religion, Jurisprudence, and Science. . . .
Law of development of discussion
" To sum up. The strife of opposition in human society, in its three principal forms - war, competition, and discussion -proves obedient to one and the same law of development through ever widening areas of temporary pacification, alternating with renewals of discord more centrally organized and on a larger scale, and leading up to a final, at least partial, agreement."
SUMMARY
Discussion is the illuminating flame into which smouldering conflicts burst.
All losing sides dread discussion and try to stamp it out.
A people that enjoys free discussion is likely to conquer all the other freedoms it can profitably use.
Discussion is sterile in matters that do not admit of being decided by the reason.
It is profitless when the appeal is to passion and prejudice rather than to reason.
There is a well-marked path by which intellectual battle descends into physical collision.
Social lumps cannot become incandescent in the flame of discussion till they are broken up.
With respect to the degree of aggressiveness of the combatants the conflict between new and old presents three phases.
Discussion is subject to the same law of development as the other forms of opposition in society.
EXERCISES
1. Why is discussion able to " hurry conflicts to a conclusion
2. What are the rules to be observed in order that discussion shall be enlightening and fruitful?
3. If two elements in a group differ as to ends and neither can influence the other in discussion, by what means can they be brought to abide peacefully together?
4. Show that the battle of new truth is sometimes against organized dogmatism's desire to limit knowledge, sometimes against organized conservatism's desire to limit action.
5. Compare the methods of these foes of new truth a. The bigotry of the ignorant. b. The impatience of the temperamental conservatives. c. The alarmed self-interest of crafts, professions, or classes " in danger to be set at nought."
