Social Psychology
Chapter 19: The Results of Conflict
Edward Alsworth Ross
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Certain conflicts continue because people differ in nature
THE outcome of the duel between rival culture elements, may be various. Some struggles last indefinitely because of inborn differences between human beings. This is akin to the unceasing warfare between highlanders and lowlanders, or between nomads and sedentary populations, as in Arabia. Thus, it is likely that the great rival types of diet, that with sugar and that of sour, heavy foods in association with liquor, will persist because they correspond to differences of palate. Vowel languages and consonant languages seem to go with contrasted types of race psychology, and it is little likely that one group will finally replace the other. So long as one kind of man strives to rid himself of risk, while another type welcomes risk as a relish and a stimulus, the feud between gambling and anti-gambling will continue. It is not likely that the Presbyterian Church will in the end absorb all the Methodists or the Methodist Church absorb all the Presbyterians, seeing that Presbyterian intellectualism and Methodist emotionalism appeal to different temperaments, and each is certain to find a following. So, in ethical opinion, one type of man leans toward the justice of the Old Testament, while another type is attracted by the brotherly love of the New Testament.
Or because people are born young
Or, the struggle may continue because it is a duel between an illusion and a paradox. The world is round but seems flat, moves but seems stationary. Each new generation is
(325) staggered at this dilemma, and, however early or impressively we teach the doctrine of heliocentrism, there is a brief struggle in the pupil's mind between the authority of the text-book and the evidence of his senses. Now, in just the same way, the conflict between self-indulgence and temperance is always breaking out afresh, because it is a paradox to say that the way to be happy is to quit when you still want more. The illusion of Epicureanism fights always with the paradox of Stoicism, for what seems more absurd on its -face than weeding out your desires instead of trying to gratify them all? In the reform of public morals the champions of physical force never surrender to the believers in moral suasion, for what looks more foolish than improving the conduct of men by the tedious method of persuasion when you can threaten them with the mailed fist? It is because the path of life is so thickset with these pitfalls of illusion that it is necessary to maintain a distinct profession - the clergy - to teach people the beneficent moral paradoxes that save them from these pitfalls.
In the second place, struggles may terminate; but here we can distinguish three cases.
Conflicts may end by the extinction of one side by the other
In the first case, one side is silenced or convinced. This can be compared to a warfare resulting in the extermination of one belligerent by the other. In silent conflict the use of the preposition has triumphed over the declension ending of the noun and the use of the auxiliary verb over the inflection ending of the verb. Short hair for men has triumphed over long hair; and for the women of the Germanic peoples, the flowing dress of southern Europe has prevailed over the close-fitting dress congenial to the northern races. Thus have been exterminated armor,
(326) knee-breeches, the spinning-wheel, the morality play, the Christmas carol. In the sphere of vocal conflict there is the victory of the principle of public trial, of equality of all before the law, of the freedom of the press, of religious toleration; the utter extermination of astrology, mesmerism, the doctrine of "signatures," the "special creation" hypothesis, the "chosen people" dogma, the doctrine of Divine Right, the policy of free banking, the practice of judicial torture, the principle of imprisonment for debt.
Or by their coming together on a middle ground
In the second case, the struggle ends because a middle ground is found upon which both parties can stand. This is analogous to the warfare ending in the assimilation and amalgamation of the combatants. The ancient duel between fatalism and free will terminates in the acceptance of the scientific determinism which insists that every volition must have its cause in the self, yet recognizes no decree of an outside fate, and admits that the self that wills may be a purified self wrought out by a ceaseless endeavor to realize a personal ideal. The battle between centralization and local government dies down in the general recognition of the fact that the nature of the particular function decides whether it can best be discharged by a local unit, or ought to be passed up to the general government. The controversy between romanticists and naturalists issues in the agreement that, while the writer must treat his material in strict fidelity to real life, he has an infinite field to choose his material from, and he has no excuse for producing a work that is repulsive or demoralizing. In political economy the rivalry between the abstinence and the productivity theories of interest ends in the recognition that two reasons are as necessary to a theory of interest as two blades to a pair of scissors; that the reluctance to
(327) save causes interest to be demanded for the use of capital, and the productivity of that capital enables the interestto be paid. The fight between natural science and the ancient classics for the dominant place in the college curriculum is quieted by bringing to the front a third group, the social sciences (history, civics, economics, sociology), which contribute a certain discipline neither of the other groups can impart.
Or by a partition of territory
In the third case, the struggle ends because specialization takes place. This is akin to warfare that terminates by partition of territory between the parties. In the competition between sail and steam it is found that wind power is still the cheapest agency for moving coarse, slow freight. Once it was supposed that the locomotive would completely oust the stage-coach; but there are sixty-odd stage routes maintained to-day in the state of California, and the stage-coach is still by far the cheapest method of transporting a small number of passengers over a mountain route. Far from being vanquished by the railroad, the inland waterway finds in the moving of heavy freight, like stone, coal, lumber, and brick, a field of usefulness in which it is perfectly able to hold its own. Likewise, in the competition between steam power and water power, hard coal and soft coal, large industry and small industry, steam railroad and electric interurban, it is finally discovered that, instead of fighting to the death, each of the rivals has a field in which it is secure from the pursuit of the other. Only the common border of these two fields is debatable land. The interference between "admittance" and "admission" ends when one is used for the act of letting in, the other for permission to come in. The clash between " visit " and " visitation " is settled when the latter
(328) term is reserved for the more formal and official act. In vocal conflict we see the long rivalry between the patriarchal and the contract theories of social genesis die away as one is seen to hold for the genetic grouping, the other for the congregate grouping. The battle between intuitionism and utilitarianism ends as soon as the theory of evolution makes it clear that, on the one hand, natural selection will fix in human nature other-regarding impulses; on, the other hand, that such impulses can refer only to conduct promoting the survival of the social group or the species. Evolution, likewise, divides the honors between optimism and pessimism by insisting with the optimists that the processes of adaptation tend continually to bring the species into harmony with its environment, and admitting with the pessimists that these processes are so slow that men may be very poorly fitted to be happy amid the artificial conditions imposed by the growth of their numbers and their wants.
No question is settled till it is settled right
Sometimes the division is unscientific, and later on the discussion breaks out again. Is the Bible errant or inerrant? Solved by declaring it to be infallible for religious truth. But the progress of the Higher Criticism seems to make this distinction no longer tenable. The struggle between Church and State appeared to be settled by the ingenious distinction between " temporal " and " spiritual " power. Let the State deal with the body, the Church with the soul. But this demarcation no longer serves when the State confronts such problems as the civil control of marriage, the freedom of the press, the care of dependents, and the promotion of education. So, the slavery compromises in the Federal Constitution, and the acts of Congress finally proved unable to repress conflict, and men
(329) came to realize that " the Union cannot endure half slave and half free.
SUMMARY
Not all duels between rival elements of culture terminate.
Some persist because society always includes great diversities of taste, temperament, and mental habit.
Others persist because experience establishes some truths which seem paradoxical to the young.
When duels terminate they end in three different ways.
Some end because one side is annihilated by the other.
Some end because a more comprehensive principle or policy is found which includes and supersedes them both.
Finally, some end because each side has found a position from which it cannot be dislodged.
EXERCISES
1. Why is it that almost invariably truth or wisdom is found to be with neither extremist in a controversy but somewhere between the extremists?
2. Why is a law or institution apt to be the offspring of a compromise; a reigning belief, moral standard or personal ideal, the survivor of a logical duel?
3. Show that some institutions - e.g., the jury system - are subject to endless controversy because their faults lie nearer the surface than their merits.
4. Show that some discussions run on because the ulterior consequences of a policy - say outdoor poor relief - contradict its immediate results, or because its advantages -say the institutional care of children - admit of readier formulation than its disadvantages.
5. Show that some conflicts are protracted because one side can state its case more freely than the other -e.g., indissoluble marriage vs. divorce.
