Introduction to the Science of Sociology Part 48

30. Why has the growth of the city resulted in the subst.i.tution of secondary for primary social contacts?

31. What problems grow out of the breakdown of primary relations? What problems are solved by the breakdown of primary relations?

32. Do the contacts of city life make for the development of individuality? personality? social types?

33. In what ways does publicity function as a form of secondary contact in American life?

34. Why does the European peasant first become a reader of newspapers after his immigration to the United States?

35. Why does the shift from country to city involve a change (a) from concrete to abstract relations; (b) from absolute to relative standards of life; (c) from personal to impersonal relations; and (d) from sentimental to rational att.i.tudes?

36. How far is social solidarity based upon concrete and sentimental rather than upon abstract and rational relations?

37. Why does immigration make for change from sentimental to rational att.i.tudes toward life?

38. In what way is capitalism a.s.sociated with the growth of secondary contacts?

39. How does "the stranger" include externality and intimacy?

40. In what ways would you ill.u.s.trate the relation described by Simmel that combines "the near" and "the far"?

41. Why is it that "the stranger" is a.s.sociated with revolutions and destructive forces in the group?

42. Why does "the stranger" have prestige?

43. In what sense is the att.i.tude of the academic man that of "the stranger" as compared with the att.i.tude of the practical man?

44. To what extent does the professional man have the characteristics of "the stranger"?

45. Why does the feeling of a relation as unique give it value that it loses when thought of as shared by others?

46. What would be the effect upon the problem of the relation of the whites and negroes in the United States of the recognition that this relation is of the same kind as that which exists between other races in similar situations?

FOOTNOTES:

[117] Alexander Pope, in smooth lines, and with apt phrases, has concretely described this process of perversion:

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

[118] H. S. Jennings, John B. Watson, Adolph Meyer, and W. I. Thomas, "Practical and Theoretical Problems in Instinct and Habit," _Suggestions of Modern Science Concerning Education_, p. 174.

[119] See Introduction, pp. 8-10.

[120] Thorstein Veblin, _The Instinct of Workmanship, and the State of the Industrial Arts_. (New York, 1914.)

[121] From Albion W. Small, _General Sociology_, pp. 486-89. (The University of Chicago Press, 1905.)

[122] From Ellen C. Semple, _Influences of Geographic Environment_, pp.

51-53. (Henry Holt & Co., 1911.)

[123] From Ernest Crawley, _The Mystic Rose_, pp. 76-79. (Published by The Macmillan Co., 1902. Reprinted by permission.)

[124] From W. G. Sumner, _Folkways_, pp. 12-13. (Ginn & Co., 1906.)

[125] Adapted from N. S. Shaler, _The Neighbor_, pp. 207-27. (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1904.)

[126] From Friedrich Ratzel, _The History of Mankind_, I, 21-25.

(Published by The Macmillan Co., 1896. Reprinted by permission.)

[127] Adapted from Ellen C. Semple, _Influences of Geographic Environment_, pp. 75-84, 186-87. (Henry Holt & Co., 1911.)

[128] Adapted from Caroline C. Richards, _Village Life in America_, pp.

21-138. (Henry Holt & Co., 1912.)

[129] From Robert E. Park, "The City," in the _American Journal of Sociology_, XX (1914-15), 593-609.

[130] From Robert E. Park, "The City," in the _American Journal of Sociology_, XX (1914-15), 604-7.

[131] Adapted from Werner Sombart, _The Quintessence of Capitalism_, pp.

292-307. (T. F. Unwin, Ltd., 1915.)

[132] Translated from Georg Simmel, _Soziologie_, pp. 685-91. (Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1908.)

[133] Ellsworth Huntington, _Climate and Civilization_. (New Haven, 1915.)

[134] The following is one of the typical ill.u.s.trations of this point.

An art teacher conducted a group of children from a settlement, in a squalid city area, to the country. She asked the children to draw any object they wished. On examination of the drawings she was astonished to find not rural scenes but pictures of the city streets, as lamp-posts and smokestacks.

CHAPTER VI

SOCIAL INTERACTION

I. INTRODUCTION

1. The Concept of Interaction

The idea of interaction is not a notion of common sense. It represents the culmination of long-continued reflection by human beings in their ceaseless effort to resolve the ancient paradox of unity in diversity, the "one" and the "many," to find law and order in the apparent chaos of physical changes and social events; and thus to find explanations for the behavior of the universe, of society, and of man.

The disposition to be curious and reflective about the physical and social universe is human enough. For men, in distinction from animals, live in a world of ideas as well as in a realm of immediate reality.

This world of ideas is something more than the mirror that sense-perception offers us; something less than that ultimate reality to which it seems to be a prologue and invitation. Man, in his ambition to be master of himself and of nature, looks behind the mirror, to a.n.a.lyze phenomena and seek causes, in order to gain control. Science, natural science, is a research for causes, that is to say, for mechanisms, which in turn find application in technical devices, organization, and machinery, in which mankind a.s.serts its control over physical nature and eventually over man himself. Education, in its technical aspects at least, is a device of social control, just as the printing press is an instrument that may be used for the same purpose.

Sociology, like other natural sciences, aims at prediction and control based on an investigation of the nature of man and society, and nature means here, as elsewhere in science, just those aspects of life that are determined and predictable. In order to describe man and society in terms which will reveal their nature, sociology is compelled to reduce the complexity and richness of life to the simplest terms, i.e., elements and forces. Once the concepts "elements" or "forces" have been accepted, the notion of interaction is an evitable, logical development.

In astronomy, for example, these elements are (a) the ma.s.ses of the heavenly bodies, (b) their position, (c) the direction of their movement, and (d) their velocity. In sociology, these forces are inst.i.tutions, tendencies, human beings, ideas, anything that embodies and expresses motives and wishes. In _principle_, and with reference to their logical character, the "forces" and "elements" in sociology may be compared with the forces and elements in any other natural science.