A SOCIOLOGICAL VIEW OF SUCCESS—SUCCESS AND THE SOCIAL ORDER—INTELLIGENCE—AGGRESSIVE TRAITS—SYMPATHETIC TRAITS—HANDICAPS—A TEST OF ABILITY
The question of success is a sociological question, in one phase at least, because it concerns the relation of the individual to the group, of the personal process to that of society at large. It should be somewhat illuminating to regard it from this point of view.
What is success? To answer this rightly we must unite the idea of personal self-realization with a just conception of the relation of this to the larger human life. Perhaps we shall not be far wrong if we say that success is self-development in social service. It must be the former, certainly, and if it is true that the higher forms of the personal life are found only in social function, it must be the latter also.
This view well stands the test of ordinary experience. It is self-development in social service that most surely, gives the feeling of success, the fullest consciousness of personal existence and efficacy. No matter what a man’s external fortunes may be, how slender his purse or how humble his position, if he feels that he is living his real life, playing his full part in the general movement of the human spirit, he will be conscious of success. The martyrs who died rejoicing at the stake had this consciousness, and so, at the present time, may soldiers have it who perish in battle, and thousands of others, whose work, if not so perilous, offers no prospect of material reward—missionaries, social agitators, investigators, and artists. It is not confined to any exceptional class but is found throughout humanity. If a man is working zealously at a task worthy in itself and not unsuited to his capacity, he has commonly the feeling of success.
Success of this sort meets another common-sense test in that it usually gives the maximum influence over others of which one is capable. People do not influence us in proportion to their external power, but in proportion to what we feel to be their intrinsic significance for life; their ideals, their fidelity to them, their love, courage, and hope. And one who gives himself heartily to the highest service he feels competent to, will attain his maximum significance.
Success, then, is a matter of effective participation in the social process; and to get a clearer idea of it we may well consider further what the latter calls for. The organization of society has two main aspects, that of unity and that of differentiation, the aspect of specialized functions and the aspect of a total life for which these functions co-operate. The life of the individual, if it is to be one with that of society, must share in these aspects, must have a specialized development and at the same time a unifying wholeness. He must be able, by endowment and training, to do well some one kind of service, as carpentry, let us say, or farming, or banking; and must also have a breadth of personality which participates largely in the general life and makes him a good citizen. The social process is like a play in that no actor can do his own part well except as he enters into the spirit of the whole: he must be a true member, the organization needs to be alive in every part. A nation is a poor thing unless the citizen is a patriot, entering intelligently into its spirit and aims, and the principle applies in various manners and degrees to a community, a shop, a school—any whole in which one may share.
If one thinks of the human process at large, with its onward striving, its experimentation, its conflicts and co-operations, its need for foresight and for unity of spirit; and then asks what kind of an individual it takes to do his full part in such a process, he will be on the track of the secret of personal success. It calls for energy and initiative, because these are the springs of the process; self-reliance and tenacity, because these are required to discover and develop one’s special function; sympathy and adaptability, because they enable one to work his function in with the movement as a whole. And intelligence is needed everywhere, in order that his mind may reflect and anticipate the process, and so share effectively in it.
Whatever we are trying to do, we need a sound imagination and judgment, and lack of these enters into nearly all cases of inefficacy and failure. If a machinist, let us say, understands as a whole the piece of work upon which he is engaged, he can do his part intelligently, adaptively, and with a sense of power; and in so far is a successful man. He serves well and develops himself. If, beyond this, he has the mind to grasp as a whole the work of some department of the shop, so as to see how it ought to go, if he has also the understanding of men, based on imagination, which enables him to select and guide them; he is fit to become a foreman. Similar powers of a larger range make a competent superintendent. And so with social functions in general, large or small. A good President of the United States is, first of all, one who has the constructive social imagination to grasp, in its main features, the real situation of the country, the vital problems, the significant ideas and men, the deep currents of sentiment. Without this there can be no real leader of the people. Likewise each of us has an ever-changing social situation to deal with, and will succeed as he can understand and co-operate with it.
A good administrative mind is a place where the organization of the world goes on. It is the centre of the social process, where choices are made and men and things assigned to their functions.
I have found it a main difference among men, and one not easy to discern until you have observed them for some time, that some have a constructive mind and some have not. One whom I think of has a remarkably keen and independent intellect, and is not at all lacking in ambition and self-assertion. Those who know him well have expected that he would do remarkable things, and the only reason why he has not, that I can see, is that his ideas do not seem to undergo the unconscious gestation and organization required to make them work. There is something obscurely sterile about him. On the other hand, I have known a good many young men, not particularly promising, who have gradually forged ahead just because their conceptions, though not brilliant, seemed to have a certain native power of growth, like that of a sound grain of corn. All life is an inscrutable and mainly unconscious growth, and it is thus with that share of it that belongs to each of us.