Old World Traits Transplanted
Chapter 2: Heritages and Human Wishes
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THE attitudes examined in the last chapter were typical for the given groups—that is, they were found to be prevalent in a large number of cases. About 5,000 documents were examined for the Jewish group, about 15,000 for the Polish, and fewer for the other groups. But while they were useful as a means of defining heritages and the problem of assimilation, neither an individual nor a group can be characterized by an enumeration of attitudes taken at random. What distinguishes societies and individuals is the predominance of certain attitudes over others, and this predominance depends, as we shall see below, on the type of organization which the group has developed to regulate the expression of the wishes of its members.
The individual has wishes which can be realized only in association with other human beings, but when human beings come together there is a conflict of wishes. Consequently every man cannot have ab-
( 26) -solutely what he wants, but must modify, qualify, and regulate the expression of his wishes. The organization of society has always a double character: it makes possible the gratification of the individual's wishes, and even the multiplication of them, but at the same time it requires that his wishes shall be gratified only in usual ways, that their expression shall be so regulated as not to interfere unfairly with the expression of the wishes; of others. All standards of behavior, all moral and legal codes, all penalties for disorder and crime, all appreciations and rewards which a society bestows on a deserving member, are expressions of this effort to live together.
'The factor of individual temperament prevents men from behaving identically—certain wishes predominate in given individuals—but it is the social organization under which men live that mainly deter-mines the behavior inspired in them by their wishes. We can, therefore, gain a better understanding of the heritages of the immigrant groups—why they behave in given ways, why they bring the heritages which they do bring—by examining briefly the nature of the human wishes and the form of social organization which controls the wishes of our immigrants at home.
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While the concrete wishes are very numerous, they all fall under one or more of four types or patterns : (1) the desire for new experience; (2) the desire for security; (3) the desire for response; and (4) the desire for recognition.[1]
FOUR FUNDAMENTAL WISHES
Under the desire for new experience we class the tendency to gratify the physical appetites, to secure stimulations and sensations, and to seek their repetition. In its pure form the desire for new experience
1 results in motion, change, danger, instability, social irresponsibility. It is seen in simple forms in the prowling and meddling activities of the child, and the love of adventure and travel in the boy and man. It ranges in moral quality from the pursuit of game and the pursuit of pleasure to the pursuit of knowledge and .the pursuit of ideals. It is found equally in the vagabond and the scientific explorer. Gambling is a form of it, and it enters into business enterprise. Novels, theaters, motion pictures, etc., are means of satisfying this desire vicariously, and their popularity is a sign of its elemental
( 28) force. The individual who is dominated by this desire shows a tendency to disregard prevailing standards and group interests. He may be a complete failure, on account of his instability; or he may be a conspicuous success, if he converts his experiences into social values, puts them, for instance, in the form of a poem, makes from them a contribution to science.
The desire for security is opposed to the desire for new experience. It implies avoidance of danger and death—caution, conservatism. Incorporation in an organization (family, community, state) provides the greatest security. ' We shall notice later that this desire shapes the organization of the peasants of Europe, which our immigrant groups represent. In the peasant group behavior is predetermined for the individual by tradition. He is secure as long as the group organization is secure, without the exercise of personal originality or creativeness; and security means not only physical security, but a secure economic and social position, without apprehension of disturbing change.
The desire for response is a craving for the more intimate and preferential appreciation of others. It is exemplified in mother love, romantic love, family affection, and
( 29) other personal attachments. Homesickness and loneliness are expressions of it.
The desire for recognition expresses itself in devices for securing distinction in the eyes of the public. A list of these devices would be very long. It would include courageous behavior, ostentatious ornament and dress, displays of opinions and knowledge, the cultivation of special attainments, in the arts, for example. This wish is expressed alike in arrogance and in humility, even in martyrdom. The "will to power" is one phase of it. Certain modes of seeking recognition we define as "vanity," others as "ambition." Many of the devices used for securing recognition are also used for securing response.
There is, of course, a kaleidoscopic mingling of wishes throughout life, and a single given act may contain several of them. Thus, when a peasant emigrates to America he may expect to have a good time and learn many things (new experience), to make a fortune (greater security), to have a higher social standing on his return (recognition), and to induce a certain person to marry him (response).
PRIMITIVE REGULATION OF WISHES
Now the simplest attempts to regulate the wishes have always and everywhere—in
( 30) savage as well as civilized societies—taken the form of what is called a "primary-group" organization, and our immigrants,. except for the few professionals and intellectuals among them, lived at home under this general system.[2]
"By primary groups I mean those characterized by intimate face-to-face association and co-operation. They are primary in several senses, but chiefly in that they are fundamental in forming the social nature and ideals of the individual. The result of intimate association, psychologically, is a certain fusion of individualities in a common whole, so that one's very self, for many purposes at least, is the common life and purpose of the group. Perhaps the simplest way of describing this wholeness is by saying that it is a `we'; it involves the sort of sympathy and mutual identification for which `we' is the natural expression. One lives in the feeling of the whole and finds the chief aims of his will in that feeling." [3]
The obvious value of this type of organization is that -it gives solidarity and security to the group; that through group-wise action the interests of all are best secured in. the struggle against hunger, cold, enemies,. pestilence, and death. It is not a rational
( 31) form of association; it is customary, and it is capable of assuming the fixity of animal behavior represented in the herd. Every value, - every standard of behavior that is fixed by tradition, becomes absolute and assumes a sacred character. Every member is expected to conform and failure to con-form produces violent emotions in both the group and the stubborn member. In his volume on the South Slays, Krauss has given some striking examples of the struggles of the group with the nonconformist.
21. . Unanimity prevails as a rule, but it also happens that when the question is put by the domacin, all except one may agree to a motion, but the motion is never carried if that one refuses to agree to it. In such cases all endeavor to talk over and persuade the stiff-necked one. Often they even call to their aid his wife, his children, his relatives, his father-in-law, and his mother, that they may prevail upon him to say "yes." Then all assail him, and say to him from time to time, "Come now, God help you, agree with us too, that this may take place as we wish it,,. that the house may not be cast into disorder, that we may not be talked about by the people, that the neighbors may not hear of it, that the world may not make sport of us!" It seldom occurs in such cases that unanimity is not attained![4]
In another case a member who has Wen for a time away from the commune and
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wishes to take advantage of the state law regarding inheritance of property, which differs from the communal practice, is withered by the indignation of the villagers. They tell him he has lost his reason, and eventually he claims this also and asks forgiveness:
22. [The village.] Some strange sin is leading you into an abyss, and has brought you into conflict with the villagers, your brothers.... Woe to the brother without a brother! ... The village is always stronger than the bear....Shake off those strange thoughts and strange clothes.
[Nikola:] Truly, brothers, how shall I answer you? I see myself that I have lost my reason and have sinned against God and against you. And I have mainly injured myself by my wanderings about the world.[5]
23. In the discussion of some question by the mir [organization of neighbors] there are no speeches, no debates, no votes. They shout, they abuse one another—they seem on the point of coming to blows; apparently they riot in the most senseless manner. Some one preserves silence, and then suddenly puts in a word, one word, or an ejaculation, and by this word, this ejaculation, he turns the whole thing upside down. In the end, you look into it and find that an admirable decision has been formed and, what is most important, a unanimous decision... . [In the division of land] the cries, the noise the
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hubbub do not subside until everyone is satisfied and no doubter is left.[6]
The example cited above from a Mohammedan family in North Africa (document 15), where a father kills his daughter as a matter of course, and the mother and relatives participate as a matter of course, and the girl acquiesces as a matter of course, represents the primary group when the organization is working smoothly.[7] The following documents describe various "primary organizations."
24. The Polish peasant family, in the primary and larger sense of the word, is a social group including all the blood—and law—relatives up to a certain variable limit—usually the fourth degree. The family in the narrower sense, including only the married pair with their children, may be termed the
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"marriage-group."... The fundamental . . . connection . . . may be termed "familial solidarity," and manifests itself both in assistance rendered to, and in control exerted over, any members of the group by any other member representing the group as a whole. . . The familial relation between two members admits no gradation, as does love or friend-ship. . . . Husband and wife are not individuals more or less closely connected according to their personal sentiments, but group members . . . con-trolled by both the united families. Therefore the marriage norm is not love, but "respect," as the relation which can be controlled and reinforced by the family, and which corresponds also exactly to the situation of the other party as member of a group and representing the dignity of that group... .
In all the relations between parents and children the familial organization leaves no place for merely personal affection. Certainly this affection exists, but it cannot express itself in socially sanctioned acts. . . . The behavior of the parents toward the children . . . must be determined exclusively by their situations as family members, not by individual merits or preference. . . . Thus, the parents, usually prefer one child to the others, but this preference should be based upon a familial superiority. The preferred child is usually the one who for some reason is to take the parental farm (the oldest son in central Poland; the youngest son in the mountainous districts of the south; any son who stays at home while others emigrate), or it is the child who is most likely to raise by his personal qualities the social standing of the family... .
The reality of the familial ties once admitted, every member of the family evidently feels responsible for,
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and is held responsible for, the behavior and welfare of every other member, because, in peasant thinking, judgments upon the group as a whole are constantly made on the basis of the behavior of members of the family, and vice versa. On this account also between any two relatives, wherever found, an immediate nearness is assumed which normally leads to friend-ship. In this connection it is noticeable that in primitive peasant life all the attitudes of social pride; are primarily familial and only secondarily individual. When a family has lived from time immemorial in the same locality, when all its members for three generations are known or remembered, every individual is classified first of all as belonging to the family, and appreciated according to the appreciation which the family enjoys, while, on the other hand, the social standing of the family is influenced by the social standing of its members, and no individual can rise or fall without drawing to some extent the group with him. At the same time no individual can so rise or fall as to remove himself from the familial background upon which social opinion always puts him.[8]
25. When I first came into this world the Rihbany clan experienced the usual rejoicing which comes to a Syrian clan when a man child is born to one of its families. My kindred rejoiced at my advent, not merely because I was a son instead of a daughter, important as that was, but because I was an asset of the clan, a possible reinforcement to their fighting
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strength, which they had to use often against another powerful clan in the town, called Jirdak. In the Jirdak camp, however, a correspondingly great sorrow was felt. On the same night on which I was born they lost by death one of their most valiant fighters. . . . As clans, we lived in accordance with the precept, "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burning for burning, wound for wound," and no favor... .
Clannish life has its decidedly romantic side. Provided one is able and willing to forget the larger interests of civilization and the nobler visions of nationalism and human brotherhood, and make the rule of his social life the faulty maxim, "My clan, right or wrong," I know of no more delightful social state than that which clannish life affords. As I write, the past rises before me like a bewitching dream. I am carried back to the time when the hearts of all my kinsmen throbbed, beat for beat, with my heart; when everyone of their homes was as much mine as my own fireside, when we lived in life's shifting lights and shadows, "all for each and each for all." The fact that we dwelt among antagonistic clans served only to heighten our heroism, strengthen our clannish cohesion, and intensify the delightfulness of our kinship. [9]
26. There are about four hundred and fifty clans in the [Chinese] Empire. Branches of the most important of them are found in nearly every province. A town, however, never consists of people of one clan alone, as a man is not allowed to marry a woman of the same name. The organization of them is so complete that, while it sometimes secures justice to the innocent, it may besides thwart the designs of
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the government, and even of justice. In some parts of the country they keep up bitter and even bloody quarrels from generation to generation; and the chiefs of the 'clan at Peking are able to prevent the punishment of murder and violence committed by members of it elsewhere.... I know of none in California.
The second class of powerful organizations in China is the trade associations, or guilds. These resemble those for similar objects in Europe and America, and therefore need no special description here. They are there, as here, often beneficent in their operations, and yet often oppressive. In a monarchical or despotic government they are useful as a check against its tyranny; but it is still doubtful whether they are not more of an injury than a benefit, since they interfere with healthful competition, remove incitements to industry, and provide opportunities for the arts of intriguing and worthless men, or resorts for the depraved. It is stated that there are a hundred and fifty of their halls in Canton... .
The third class is that of town and district councils. This forms the highest advance toward a regular representative government. They exercise the local powers of government to such an extent that the imperial officers rarely dare to rouse them to general resistance. The local administration of justice is left almost wholly in their hands. Police arrangements, and taxation for local purposes, are within their jurisdiction. The elders elected generally are continued as long as they perform their duties with satisfaction to the people. They are allowed a salary of from two to four hundred dollars a year. The elders of a district, which may embrace fifty to a hundred towns and villages, meet in a district council, which has its central hall, and a president and other
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necessary officers, who receive sufficient salaries... .
During the stormy times succeeding the Opium War, foreigners seeking to enlarge their former restrictions often came into conflict with these councils, and proved the extent of the popular power. We were effectually prevented from renting houses, after agreeing to pay the most outrageous, exorbitant rents, by a simple notification from the council of the ward of the city in which they were situated, that if the owner admitted us to the building it would be destroyed, and himself put to death. Nor was the governor-general, with the power of the Emperor to back him, able to sustain us against such a decree.[10]
In America we think of the "feeling of personality" as associated with individually determined acts and policies. The individual acts "on his own," takes great risks, and takes the consequences. But in the case of our immigrants the whole struggle for self-expression has been made as a member of an organization, and the individual has felt himself a person to the degree that he was incorporated in an organization. The primary group maintains the security of the whole community at the sacrifice of the wishes of its individual members. There is little place for new experience, individual recognition, and individual response, because there is little place for individual initiative
( 39) and responsibility. But the group, as a whole, has an astonishing interest in its own status among the surrounding groups, that it shall be respected and shall prosper and advance, for status means a general, public, and permanent recognition and gives a sense of permanent security. The individual also seeks status, but he must get this as the member of a group. Even the response he seeks in marriage is the response appropriate to him as member of a group. It is on this basis that we can understand completely the letters written by immigrant boys to their parents asking them to send them wives. The parents can be trusted to select girls whose status will not lower the status of the family. This is what the parents mean when they write that they will send a "suitable" wife. They may name the family of the girl, but not state which daughter is to be sent, and the boy may or may not inquire whether they are sending this or that girl:
27. [November 11, 1903.] DEAREST PARENTS: Please do not be angry with me for what I shall write. I write you that it is hard to live alone, so please find some girl for me, but an orderly [honest] one, for in America there is not even one single orderly [Polish] girl. . . . [December el, 1903.] I thank you kindly for your letter, for it was happy. As to the girl,
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although I don't know her, my companion, who knows her, says that she is stately and pretty, and I believe him, as well. as you, my parents. . . . 'Please inform me which one [of the sisters] is to come, the older or the younger one, whether Aleksandra or Stanislawa.[11]
ADJUSTMENT TO INDIVIDUALISTIC SOCIETY
The form of organization which we have here sketched is common to all the elementary stages of society. In the formation of the state the sentiment for the community was partly converted into allegiance to an individual and through him to the whole territorial group, the state. Russia, before 1918, was in the stage where subordination to the will of the sovereign was as absolute as subordination to the Will of the commune, and Japan still represents this stage, formally if not actually :
28. The people believe that it is the Tsar's business to govern them and that for this the Tsar has no need of the people. The Tsar thinks about them, either with his advisers or alone, not sleeping at night for the welfare of the people, but ... in the under-standing of the people the Tsar should govern alone. That is not his right, but his heavy burden. That is how the people look on it. In the history of Russia the Tsar has frequently taken counsel with the people, but there is only that historical form, Understood by the people and near it—a zemsky sober. These
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assemblies said, "This is what we think, but it is your will."[12]
29. Mr. H. Kato, ex-president of the Imperial University, in a recent work entitled The Evolution of Morality and Law, says . . . in so many words: "Patriotism in this country means loyalty to the throne. To the Japanese the Emperor and the country are the same. The Emperor of Japan, with-out the slightest exaggeration, can say, `L'état, c'est moi.' The Japanese believe that all their happiness is bound up with the Imperial line and have no respect for any system' of morality or law that fails to take cognizance of this fact." [13]
On the contrary, the individualism which is characteristic of Western cultural societies, and which is largely the result of increased communication, means the tendency to construct a scheme of life and relationships based on the intelligent use of all values that can be found anywhere in the world, disregarding to some extent allegiance to persons and localities.
Nevertheless, the primary-group organization persists as an element in all present societies. It is not, as is usually assumed, a survival of the past, but a spontaneous expression arising in all societies, in all classes, never absorbing completely the interests of its members, but still constituting
( 42) the most important form of social life for the immense majority of mankind. It is only in a few large cities that the primary group has lost its importance, and even there its loss begins to be felt as a dangerous trend of social evolution, as is shown by the recent attempts to reconstruct the community in American cities.
The need of intimate, face-to-face relations, the desire to be a member of society, is very powerful. Its strength appears in the mental distress of those in solitary confinement and in the tendency to insanity among those completely isolated—the sheep-herders of New Mexico, for example. It is seen, stripped of all inhibitions, naked and mandatory, in cases of mental disorder, which sometimes give the opportunity for deeper insight into the nervous system than is possible in normal life:
I must join some organization as soon as possible, for I cannot fight all hell by myself indefinitely.[14]
Working upon this need, society at home controlled the behavior of the
immigrant completely, or attempted to do so, and gave him a complete and rigid
scheme of life. We shall next examine the effect of the great American society
on this scheme.
