All non-conformity that is affirmative or constructive must act by this selection of remoter relations; opposition, by itself, being sterile, and meaning nothing beyond personal peculiarity. There is, therefore, no definite line between conformity and non-conformity; there is simply a more or less characteristic and unusual way of selecting and combining accessible influences. It is much the same question as that of invention versus imitation. As Professor Baldwin points out, there is no radical separation between these two aspects of human thought and action. There is no imitation that is absolutely mechanical and uninventive—a man cannot repeat an act without putting something of his idiosyncrasy into it—neither is there any invention that is not imitative in the sense that it is made up of elements suggested by observation and experience. What the mind does, in any case, is to reorganize and reproduce the suggested materials in accordance with its own structure and tendency; and we judge the result as imitative or inventive, original or commonplace, according as it does or does not strike us as a new and fruitful employment of the common material.[[76]]
A just view of the matter should embrace the whole of it at once, and see conformity and non-conformity as normal and complementary phases of human activity. In their quieter moods men have a pleasure in social agreement and the easy flow of sympathy, which makes non-conformity uncomfortable. But when their energy is full and demanding an outlet through the instincts, it can only be appeased by something which gives the feeling of self-assertion. They are agitated by a “creative impatience,” an outburst of the primal need to act; like the Norsemen, of whom Gibbon says: “Impatient of a bleak climate and narrow limits, they started from the banquet, sounded their horn, ascended their vessels, and explored every coast that promised either spoil or settlement.”[[77]] In social intercourse this active spirit finds its expression largely in resisting the will of others; and the spirit of opposition and self-differentiation thus arising is the principal direct stimulus to non-conformity. This spirit, however, has no power of absolute creation, and is forced to seek for suggestions and materials in the minds of others; so that the independence is only relative to the more immediate and obvious environment, and never constitutes a real revolt from the social order.
Naturally non-conformity is characteristic of the more energetic states of the human mind. Men of great vigor are sure to be non-conformers in some important respect; youth glories in non-conformity, while age usually comes back to the general point of view. “Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick or aged. In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused, when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.”[[78]]
The rational attitude of the individual toward the question of conformity or non-conformity in his own life, would seem to be: assert your individuality in matters which you deem important; conform in those you deem unimportant. To have a conspicuously individual way of doing everything is impossible to a sane person, and to attempt it would be to do one’s self a gratuitous injury, by closing the channels of sympathy through which we partake of the life around us. We should save our strength for matters in regard to which persistent conviction impels us to insist upon our own way.
Society, like every living, advancing whole, requires a just union of stability and change, uniformity and differentiation. Conformity is the phase of stability and uniformity, while non-conformity is the phase of differentiation and change. The latter cannot introduce anything wholly new, but it can and does effect such a reorganization of existing material as constantly to transform and renew human life.
I mean by rivalry a competitive striving urged on by the desire to win. It resembles conformity in that the impelling idea is usually a sense of what other people are doing and thinking, and especially of what they are thinking of us: it differs from it chiefly in being more aggressive. Conformity aims to keep up with the procession, rivalry to get ahead of it. The former is moved by a sense of the pains and inconveniences of differing from other people, the latter by an eagerness to compel their admiration. Winning, to the social self, usually means conspicuous success in making some desired impression upon other minds, as in becoming distinguished for power, wealth, skill, culture, beneficence, or the like.
On the other hand, rivalry may be distinguished from finer sorts of emulation by being more simple, crude, and direct. It implies no very subtle mental activity, no elaborate or refined ideal. If a spirited horse hears another overtaking him from behind, he pricks up his ears, quickens his steps, and does his best to keep ahead. And human rivalry appears to have much of this instinctive element in it; to become aware of life and striving going on about us seems to act immediately upon the nerves, quickening an impulse to live and strive in like manner. An eager person will not hear or read of vivid action of any sort without feeling some impulse to get into it; just as he cannot mingle in a hurrying, excited crowd without sharing in the excitement and hurry, whether he knows what it is all about or not. The genesis of ambition is often something as follows: one mingles with men, his self-feeling is vaguely aroused, and he wishes to be something to them. He sees, perhaps, that he cannot excel in just what they are doing, and so he takes refuge in his imagination, thinking what he can do which is admirable, and determining to do it. Thus he goes home nursing secret ambitions.
The motive of rivalry, then, is a strong sense that there is a race going on, and an impulsive eagerness to be in it. It is rather imitative than inventive; the idea being not so much to achieve an object for its own sake, because it is reflectively judged to be worthy, as to get what the rest are after. There is conformity in ideals combined with a thirst for personal distinction. It has little tendency toward innovation, notwithstanding the element of antagonism in it; but takes its color and character from the prevalent social life, accepting and pursuing the existing ideal of success, and whatever special quality it has depends upon the quality of that ideal. There is, for instance, nothing so gross or painful that it may not become an object of pursuit through emulation. Charles Booth, who has studied so minutely the slums of London, says that “among the poor, men drink on and on from a perverted pride,” and among another class a similar sentiment leads women to inflict surprising deformities of the trunk upon themselves.
Professor William James suggests that rivalry does nine-tenths of the world’s work.[[79]] Certainly no motive is so generally powerful among active, efficient men of the ordinary type, the type that keeps the ball moving all over the world. Intellectual initiative, high and persistent idealism, are rare. The great majority of able men are ambitious, without having intrinsic traits that definitely direct their ambition to any particular object. They feel their way about among the careers which their time, their country, their early surroundings and training, make accessible to them, and, selecting the one which seems to promise the best chance of success, they throw themselves into the pursuit of the things that conduce to that success. If the career is law, they strive to win cases and gain wealth and prestige, accepting the moral code and other standards that they find in actual use; and it is the same, mutatis mutandis, in commerce, politics, the ministry, the various handicrafts, and so on.
There is thus nothing morally distinctive about rivalry; it is harmful or beneficent according to the objects and standards with reference to which it acts. All depends upon the particular game in which one takes a hand. It may be said in a broad way, however, that rivalry supplies a stimulus wholesome and needful to the great majority of men, and that it is, on the whole, a chief progressive force, utilizing the tremendous power of ambition, and controlling it to the furtherance of ends that are socially approved. The great mass of what we judge to be evil is of a negative rather than a positive character, arising not from misdirected ambition but from apathy or sensuality, from a falling short of that active, social humanity which ambition implies.