The Foundations of Personality - Abraham Myerson (best large ereader .txt) 📗

human beings, “politics ends at the

border,” and the gang is a unit against foreign aggression.

Indeed, gangs of a neighborhood may league against a group of

other gangs, as did the quarreling cities of Greece against

Persia.

 

[1] In the gang of which I was a member there was a ritual in the

formation of partnership, an association within the association.

Two boys, fond of each other and desiring to become partners,

would link little fingers, while a third boy acting as a sort of

priest—an elder of the gang—would raise his hand and strike the

link, shouting, “Partners, partners, never break!” This ritual

was a symbol of the unity of the pair, so that they fought for

each other, shared all personal goods (such as candy, pocket

money, etc.,) and were to be loyal and sympathetic throughout

life. Alas, dear partner of my boyhood, most gallant of fighters

and most generous of souls, where are you, and where is our

friendship, now?

 

For the student of mankind the gang is one of the most

fascinating phenomena. Here the power of tradition, without the

aid of records, is seen. Throughout America, in a mysterious way,

all the boys start spinning tops at a certain season and then

suddenly cease and begin, to play marbles. Without any

standardization of a central type they have the same rules for

their games, call them by the same names and use in their songs

the same rhymes and airs. Every generation of children has the

same jokes and trick games: “Eight and eight are sixteen, stick

your nose in kerosene”—“A dead cat, I one it, you two it, I

three it, you four it, I five it, you six it, I seven it, you

eight it!” The fact is, of course, that there are no generations

as distinct entities; there are always individuals of one age,

and there is a mutual teaching and learning going on at all

times, which is the basis of transmission of tradition. Children

are usually more conservative and greater sticklers for form and

propriety than even men are; only now and then a freer mind

arises whose courage and pertinacity change things.

 

Therefore, in the understanding of character the influence of the

environment becomes of as fundamental importance as the

consideration of the organic make-up of the individual. The

environment in the form of tradition, social ideal, social

status, economic situation, race, religion, family, education is

thus on the one hand the directing, guiding, eliciting factor in

character and on the other is the repressing, inhibiting,

limiting factor.

 

Putting the whole thing in another way: the organism is the

Microcosmos, or little world, in which the potentialities of

character are elaborated in the germ plasm we inherit from our

ancestors, in the healthy interaction of brain with the rest of

the body, especially the internal glands. The outside world is

the Macrocosmos, or large world, and includes the physical

conditions of existence (climate, altitude, plentiness of food,

access to the sea) as well as the social conditions of existence

(state of culture of times and race and family). The social

conditions of existence are of especial interest in that they

reach back ages before the individual was born so that the lives,

thoughts, ideals of the dead may dominate the character of the

living.

 

This macrocosmos both brings to light and stifles the character

peculiarities of the microcosmos and the character of no man, as

we see or know it, ever expresses in any complete manner his

innate possibilities.

 

The question arises: What is the basis of the influence of the

social heredity, of the forces, in the character of the person

born in a social group? Certain aspects of this we must deal with

later, in order to keep to a unified presentation of the subject.

Other aspects are pertinently to be discussed now.

 

The link that binds man to man is called the social instinct,

though perhaps it would be better to call it the group of social

instincts. The link is one of feeling, primarily, though it has

associated with it, in an indissoluble way, purpose and action.

The existence of the social instinct is undisputed; its

explanation is varied and ranges from the mystical to the

evolutionary. For the mystical (which crops out in Bergson,

Butler and even in Galton), the unity of life is its basis, and

there is a sort of recognition of parts formerly united but now

separate individuals. This does not explain hate, racial and

individual. The evolutionary aspect has received its best

handling in recent years in Trotter’s “The Herd,” where the

social instincts are traced in their relation to human history.

One writer after another has placed as basic in social instinct,

sympathy, imitation, suggestibility and the recognition of

“likeness.” These are merely names for a spreading of emotion

from one member of a group to another, for a something that makes

members of the group teachable and makes them wish to teach; that

is back of the wish to conform and help and has two sets of

guiding forces, reward and its derivative praise; punishment and

its derivative blame. Perhaps the term “derivative” is not

correct, and perhaps praise and blame are primary and reward and

punishment secondary.

 

So eminent a philosopher as the elder Mill declared the

distribution of praise and blame is the greatest problem of

society.” This view of the place of praise and blame in the

organization of character and in directing the efforts and

activity of men is hardly exaggerated. From birth to death the

pleasure of reward and praise and the pain of punishment and

blame are immensely powerful human motives. It is true that now

and then individuals seek punishment and blame, but this is

always to win the favor of others or of the most important

observer of men’s actions,—God, The child is trained through the

effect of reward and punishment, praise and blame; and these are

used to set up, on the one hand, habits of conduct, and on the

other an inner mentor and guide called Conscience. It may be true

that conscience is innate in its potentialities, but whether that

is so or not, it is the teaching and training of the times or of

some group that gives to conscience its peculiar trend in any

individual case. And before a child has any inward mentor it

depends for its knowledge of right and wrong upon the efforts of

its parents, their use of praise-reward and blame-punishment; it

reacts to these measures in accordance with the strength and

vigor of its social instincts and in accordance with its fear of

punishment and desire for reward. The feelings of duty and the

prickings of conscience serve to consolidate a structure already

formed.

 

Here we must discuss a matter of fundamental importance in

character analysis. Men are not born equal in any respect. This

inequality extends to every power, possibility and peculiarity

and has its widest range in the mental and character life. A tall

man is perhaps a foot taller than a very short man; a giant is

perhaps twice as tall as a dwarf. A very fleet runner can “do” a

hundred yards in ten seconds, and there are few except the

crippled or aged who cannot run the distance in twenty seconds.

Only in the fables has the hero the strength of a dozen men. But

where dexterity or knowledge enters things become different, and

one man can do what the most of men cannot even prepare to do.

Where abstract thought or talent or genius is involved the

greatest human variability is seen. There we have Pascals who are

mathematicians at five and discoverers at sixteen; there we have

Mozarts, composers at three; there we have our inspired boy

preachers already consecrated to their great ideal of work; and

we have also our Jesse Pomeroys, fiendish murderers before

adolescence. I believe with Carlyle that it is the heroes, the

geniuses of the race, to whom we owe its achievements; and the

hero and the genius are the men and women of “greatest

variability” in powers. The first weapon, the starting of fire,

the song that became “a folk song” were created by the

prehistoric geniuses and became the social heritage of the group

or race. And “common man” did little to develop religions or even

superstitions; he merely accepted the belief of a leader.

 

This digression is to emphasize that children and the men and

women they grow to be are widely variable in their native social

feeling, in their response to praise, blame, reward and

punishmept. One child eagerly responds to all, is moved by

praise, loves reward, fears punishment and hates blame. Another

child responds mainly to reward, is but little moved by praise,

fears punishment and laughs at blame. Still another only fears

punishment, while there is a type of deeply antisocial nature

which goes his own way, seeking his own egoistic purposes,

uninfluenced by the opinion of others, accepting reward cynically

and fighting against punishment. More than that, each child shows

peculiarities in the types of praise, reward, blame and

punishment that move him. Some children need corporal

punishment[1] and others who are made rebels by it are melted

into conformity by ostracism.

 

[1] It is a wishy-washy ideal of teaching that regards pain as

equivalent to cruelty. On the contrary, it may be real cruelty to

spare pain,—cruelty to the future of the child. Pain is a great

teacher, whether inflicted by the knife one has been told not to

play with, or by the parent when the injunction not to play with

the knife has been disregarded.

 

The distribution of praise and blame constitutes the distribution

of public opinion. Wherever public opinion is free to exercise

its power it is a weapon of extraordinary potency before which

almost nothing can stand. One might define a free nation as one

where public opinion has no limits,[1] where no one is prevented

from the expression of belief about the action of others, and no

one is exempted from the pressure of opinion. Conversely an

autocracy is one where there is but little room for the public

use of praise and but little power to blame, especially in regard

to the rulers. But in all societies, whether free or otherwise,

people are constantly praising, constantly blaming one another,

whether over the teacups or the wine glasses, in the sewing

circle or the smoking rooms, in the midst of families, in the

press, in the great halls of the states and nations. These are

“the mallets” by which society beats or attempts to beat

individuals into the accepted shape.

 

[1] In fact, Oliver Wendell Holmes has defined as the great

object of human society the free growth and expression of human

thought. How far we are from that ideal!

 

Men and women and children all strive to be praised, if not by

their own group, by some other group or by some generation. It

is, therefore, a high achievement to introduce a new ideal of

character and personality to the group. Men—whose opinion as to

desirability and praiseworthiness has been the prepotent

opinion—love best of all beauty in woman. Therefore, the ideal

of beauty as an achievement is a leading factor in the character

formation of most girls and young women. The first question girls

ask about one another is, “Is she pretty?” and in their criticism

of one another the personal appearance is the first and most,

important subject discussed. A personal beauty ideal has little

value to the character; in fact, it tends to exaggerate vanity

and triviality and selfishness; it leads away from the higher

aspects of reality. If you ask the majority of women which would

they rather be, very beautiful or very intelligent, most will say

without question (in their frank moments) that