Social fear, of a sort perhaps somewhat morbid, is vividly depicted by Rousseau in the passage of his Confessions where he describes the feeling that led him falsely to accuse a maid-servant of a theft which he had himself committed. “When she appeared my heart was agonized, but the presence of so many people was more powerful than my compunction. I did not fear punishment, but I dreaded shame: I dreaded it more than death, more than the crime, more than all the world. I would have buried, hid myself in the centre of the earth: invincible shame bore down every other sentiment; shame alone caused all my impudence, and in proportion as I became criminal the fear of discovery rendered me intrepid. I felt no dread but that of being detected, of being publicly and to my face declared a thief, liar, and calumniator....”[[73]]
So also we might distinguish, as in the case of anger, a higher form of social fear, one that is not narrowly personal, but relates to some socially derived ideal of good or right. For instance, in a soldier the terror of roaring guns and singing bullets would be a fear of the lowest or animal type. Dread of the disgrace to follow running away would be a social fear, yet not of the highest sort, because the thing dreaded is not wrong but shame—a comparatively simple and non-rational idea. People often do what they know is wrong under the influence of such fear, as did Rousseau in the incident quoted above. But, supposing the soldier’s highest ideal to be the success of his army and his country, a fear for that, overcoming all lower and cruder fears—selfish fears as they would ordinarily be called—would be moral or ethical.
CHAPTER VIII
EMULATION
Conformity—Non-conformity—The Two Viewed as Complementary Phases of Life—Rivalry—Hero-worship.
It will be convenient to distinguish three sorts of emulation—conformity, rivalry, and hero-worship.
Conformity may be defined as the endeavor to maintain a standard set by a group. It is a voluntary imitation of prevalent modes of action, distinguished from rivalry and other aggressive phases of emulation by being comparatively passive, aiming to keep up rather than to excel, and concerning itself for the most part with what is outward and formal. On the other hand, it is distinguished from involuntary imitation by being intentional instead of mechanical. Thus it is not conformity, for most of us, to speak the English language, because we have practically no choice in the matter, but we might choose to conform to particular pronunciations or turns of speech used by those with whom we wish to associate.
The ordinary motive to conformity is a sense, more or less vivid, of the pains and inconveniences of non-conformity. Most people find it painful to go to an evening company in any other than the customary dress; the source of the pain appearing to be a vague sense of the depreciatory curiosity which one imagines that he will excite. His social self-feeling is hurt by an unfavorable view of himself that he attributes to others. This example is typical of the way the group coerces each of its members in all matters concerning which he has no strong and definite private purpose. The world constrains us without any definite intention to do so, merely through the impulse, common to all, to despise peculiarity for which no reason is perceived. “Nothing in the world more subtle,” says George Eliot, speaking of the decay of higher aims in certain people, “than the process of their gradual change! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly; you and I may have sent some of our breath toward infecting them, when we uttered our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions: or perhaps it came with the vibrations from a woman’s glance.” “Solitude is fearsome and heavy-hearted,” and non-conformity condemns us to it by causing gêne, if not dislike, in others, and so interrupting that relaxation and spontaneity of attitude that is required for the easy flow of sympathy and communication. Thus it is hard to be at ease with one who is conspicuously worse or better dressed than we are, or whose manners are notably different; no matter how little store our philosophy may set by such things. On the other hand, a likeness in small things that enables them to be forgotten gives people a prima facie at-homeness with each other highly favorable to sympathy; and so we all wish to have it with people we care for.
It would seem that the repression of non-conformity is a native impulse, and that tolerance always requires some moral exertion. We all cherish our habitual system of thought, and anything that breaks in upon it in a seemingly wanton manner, is annoying to us and likely to cause resentment. So our first tendency is to suppress the peculiar, and we learn to endure it only when we must, either because it is shown to be reasonable or because it proves refractory to our opposition. The innovator is nearly as apt as anyone else to put down innovation in others. Words denoting singularity usually carry some reproach with them; and it would perhaps be found that the more settled the social system is, the severer is the implied condemnation. In periods of disorganization and change, such as ours is in many respects, people are educated to comparative tolerance by unavoidable familiarity with conflicting views—as religious toleration, for instance, is the outcome of the continued spectacle of competing creeds.
Sir Henry Maine, in discussing the forces that controlled the legal decisions of a Roman prætor, remarks that he “was kept within the narrowest bounds by the prepossessions imbibed from early training and by the strong restraints of professional opinion, restraints of which the stringency can only be appreciated by those who have personally experienced them.”[[74]] In the same way every profession, trade or handicraft, every church, circle, fraternity or clique, has its more or less definite standards, conformity to which it tends to impose on all its members. It is not at all essential that there should be any deliberate purpose to set up these standards, or any special machinery for enforcing them. They spring up spontaneously, as it were, by an unconscious process of assimilation, and are enforced by the mere inertia of the minds constituting the group.
Thus every variant idea of conduct has to fight its way: as soon as anyone attempts to do anything unexpected the world begins to cry, “Get in the rut! Get in the rut! Get in the rut!” and shoves, stares, coaxes, and sneers until he does so—or until he makes good his position, and so, by altering the standard in a measure, establishes a new basis of conformity. There are no people who are altogether non-conformers, or who are completely tolerant of non-conformity in others. Mr. Lowell, who wrote some of the most stirring lines in literature in defence of non-conformity, was himself conventional and an upholder of conventions in letters and social intercourse. Either to be exceptional or to appreciate the exceptional requires a considerable expenditure of energy, and no one can afford this in many directions. There are many persons who take pains to keep their minds open; and there are groups, countries, and periods which are comparatively favorable to open-mindedness and variation; but conformity is always the rule and non-conformity the exception.