Human nature and the social order

by Charles Horton Cooley

Conformity is a sort of co-operation: one of its functions is to economize energy. The standards which it presses upon the individual are often elaborate and valuable products of cumulative thought and experience, and whatever imperfections they may have they are, as a whole, an indispensable foundation for life: it is inconceivable that anyone should dispense with them. If I imitate the dress, the manners, the household arrangements of other people, I save so much mental energy for other purposes. It is best that each should originate where he is specially fitted to do so, and follow others where they are better qualified to lead. It is said with truth that conformity is a drag upon genius; but it is equally true and important that its general action upon human nature is elevating. We get by it the selected and systematized outcome of the past, and to be brought up to its standards is a brief recapitulation of social development: it sometimes levels down but more generally levels up. It may be well for purposes of incitement to goad our individuality by the abuse of conformity; but statements made with this in view lack accuracy. It is good for the young and aspiring to read Emerson’s praise of self-reliance, in order that they may have courage to fight for their ideas; but we may also sympathize with Goethe when he says that “nothing more exposes us to madness than distinguishing us from others, and nothing more contributes to maintaining our common-sense than living in the universal way with multitudes of men.”[^[75]]

There are two aspects of non-conformity: first, a rebellious impulse or “contrary suggestion” leading to an avoidance of accepted standards in a spirit of opposition, without necessary reference to any other standards; and, second, an appeal from present and commonplace standards to those that are comparatively remote and unusual. These two usually work together. One is led to a mode of life different from that of the people about him, partly by intrinsic contrariness, and partly by fixing his imagination on the ideas and practices of other people whose mode of life he finds more congenial.

But the essence of non-conformity as a personal attitude consists in contrary suggestion or the spirit of opposition. People of natural energy take pleasure in that enhanced feeling of self that comes from consciously not doing that which is suggested or enjoined upon them by circumstances and by other persons. There is joy in the sense of self-assertion: it is sweet to do one’s own things; and if others are against him one feels sure they are his own. To brave the disapproval of men is tonic; it is like climbing along a mountain path in the teeth of the wind; one feels himself as a cause, and knows the distinctive efficacy of his being. Thus self-feeling which, if somewhat languid and on the defensive, causes us to avoid peculiarity, may, when in a more energetic condition, cause us to seek it; just as we rejoice at one time to brave the cold, and at another to cower over the fire, according to the vigor of our circulation.

This may easily be observed in vigorous children: each in his way will be found to attach himself to methods of doing things which he regards as peculiarly his own, and to delight in asserting these methods against opposition. It is also the basis of some of the deepest and most significant differences between races and individuals. Controlled by intellect and purpose this passion for differentiation becomes self-reliance, self-discipline, and immutable persistence in a private aim: qualities which more than any others make the greater power of superior persons and races. It is a source of enterprise, exploration, and endurance in all kinds of undertakings, and of fierce defence of private rights. How much of Anglo-Saxon history is rooted in the intrinsic cantankerousness of the race! It is largely this that makes the world-winning pioneer, who keeps pushing on because he wants a place all to himself, and hates to be bothered by other people over whom he has no control. On the frontier a common man defines himself better as a cause. He looks round at his clearing, his cabin, his growing crops, his wife, his children, his dogs, horses, and cattle, and says, I did it: they are mine. All that he sees recalls the glorious sense of things won by his own hand.

Who does not feel that it is a noble thing to stand alone, to steer due west into an unknown universe, like Columbus, or, like Nansen, ground the ship upon the ice-pack and drift for the North Pole? “Adhere to your own act,” says Emerson, “and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age.” We like that epigram, Victrix causa diis placuit, sed victa Catoni, because we like the thought that a man stood out alone against the gods themselves, and set his back against the course of nature. The

“souls that stood alone,

While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,”

are not to be thought of as victims of self-sacrifice. Many of them rejoiced in just that isolation, and daring, and persistence; so that it was not self-sacrifice but self-realization. Conflict is a necessity of the active soul, and if a social order could be created from which it were absent, that order would perish as uncongenial to human nature. “To be a man is to be a non-conformer.”

I think that people go into all sorts of enterprises, for instance into novel and unaccredited sorts of philanthropy, with a spirit of adventure not far removed from the spirit that seeks the North Pole. It is neither true nor wholesome to think of the “good” as actuated by motives radically different in kind from those of ordinary human nature; and I imagine the best of them are far from wishing to be thus thought of. Undertakings of reform and philanthropy appeal to the mind in a double aspect. There is, of course, the desire to accomplish some worthy end, to effectuate some cherished sentiment which the world appears to ignore, to benefit the oppressed, to advance human knowledge, or the like. But behind that is the vague need of self-expression, of creation, of a momentous experience, so that one may know that one has really lived. And the finer imaginations are likely to find this career of novelty and daring, not in the somewhat outworn paths of war and exploration, but in new and precarious kinds of social activity. So one may sometimes meet in social settlements and charity organization bureaus the very sort of people that led the Crusades into Palestine. I do not speak at random, but have several persons in mind who seem to me to be of this sort.

In its second aspect non-conformity may be regarded as a remoter conformity. The rebellion against social influence is only partial and apparent; and the one who seems to be out of step with the procession is really keeping time to another music. As Thoreau said, he hears a different drummer. If a boy refuses the occupation his parents and friends think best for him, and persists in working at something strange and fantastic, like art or science, it is sure to be the case that his most vivid life is not with those about him at all, but with the masters he has known through books, or perhaps seen and heard for a few moments. Environment, in the sense of social influence actually at work, is far from the definite and obvious thing it is often assumed to be. Our real environment consists of those images which are most present to our thoughts, and in the case of a vigorous, growing mind, these are likely to be something quite different from what is most present to the senses. The group to which we give allegiance, and to whose standards we try to conform, is determined by our own selective affinity, choosing among all the personal influences accessible to us; and so far as we select with any independence of our palpable companions, we have the appearance of non-conformity.