Our great lack, as regards higher discipline, has been that we have had no habitual and moving vision of our State. There has been a great deal of a vague kind of patriotism, but it has generally lacked specific ideal, purpose, and form. The ingrained habit of regarding government as a minor part of life, a necessary evil, and the pursuit of second-rate men, has diverted the spiritual energies of our people from public channels, not only impairing our national life and discrediting democracy, but leaving the individual without that sense of public function which his own character requires. The religious ardor which men willingly give to their country when they feel their identity with it is the noblest basis for discipline, and it remains for us to find a means of arousing this other than the gross and obsolescent one of threatened war. We need, along with the growth of freedom and enlightenment, a growing vision of the nation as the incarnation of our ideal, as an upbuilder of great enterprises, as a friend and benefactor of other nations, and as an honorable contestant in an international struggle for leadership in industry, science, art, and every sort of higher service. This might, perhaps, be made the motive for some sort of universal service and training in connection with the schools, which should be as peaceful in spirit as the times permit, though capable of taking a warlike direction if necessary. What a state like Germany has done by the aid of militarism and bureaucracy, yet with a large measure of success, we ought to do in our own way, and do much better.
Our discipline needs to be as diverse as our society. A well-organized plan of life should embrace a system of disciplinary groups corresponding to the chief aspects of human endeavor, each one surrounding the individual with an atmosphere of emulation and with ideals of a particular sort. Democracy should not mean uniformity, but the fullest measure of differentiation, a development everywhere of special spirits—in communities, in occupations, in culture groups, in distinctive personalities.
The ideal discipline for democracy, I think, is one that trusts unreservedly to the democratic principle. It should begin in the family by making the life as intimate and co-operative as possible, so that the children may get the group feeling and become accustomed to act in view of group purposes and ideals. Their training should come through service, self-respect, and example, with as little coercion as possible. In the schools, of all grades, control through self-government and public opinion will probably more and more take the place of mechanism and punishment, and the same plan will be applied to corrective institutions. In the field of play spontaneous groups under wholesome influences—boys’ and girls’ clubs, Boy Scouts, and the like—are capable of an extension which shall bring the whole youth of the land under the sway of their admirable discipline. And so in colleges; it seems to me that we can better get what we want, in the way of health, bearing, self-control, and capacity to meet military and other requirements, if we work mainly through influence, example, and voluntary forms of organization. Except in times of urgent crisis the sentiment of students will resent compulsion and render it more or less ineffective.
It is the same in public life, in economic relations, and in every kind of organization. We shall, in general, get a better discipline by trusting democracy more rather than less, provided this trust is not merely passive but includes a vigorous use of educative methods. Even now, if the test of discipline is self-control, and the power to function responsibly in behalf of any purpose the group may adopt, I question whether we have not shown ourselves as well disciplined as any people. In so far as we have honestly and thoroughly applied the democratic idea it has not failed us.
PART III
DEGENERATION
CHAPTER XV
AN ORGANIC VIEW OF DEGENERATION
THE MEANING OF DEGENERATION—DOWNWARD GROWTH—AN ORGANIC PROCESS—ORGANIC RESPONSIBILITY—PARTICULARISM IN SOCIAL REFORM—NARROW VIEWS OF CAUSATION—THE ONE-CAUSE FALLACY—STATISTICAL ILLUSION—LIMITATIONS OF THE STATISTICAL METHOD—STUDIES OF DEGENERATE EVOLUTION
The words degeneracy and degeneration are rooted in the Latin word genus, and carry the idea of falling away from a type or standard; as when, for example, we say that a child is degenerate, meaning that he does not come up to the standard set by his ancestors. They are coming to be used as general terms for a state or process of deterioration, most of the words in more common use, such as wrong, evil, disease, and sin, having special implications which it is desirable to avoid.
It is the nature of the human mind, working through social organization, to form norms or standards in every department of life, and to stigmatize whatever falls below these. Such norms are applied with peculiar emphasis to human personality itself, and to the various kinds of behavior in which it is expressed, because these are the matters in which we are most interested. Whether our judgments will prove to be permanently right or only a kind of moral fashion, it is impossible to be sure. It seems to be understood, however, that the word degeneration is used only with reference to standards which are believed to be of a relatively permanent or well-grounded kind, so that it is hard to imagine that the implied judgment could be wholly reversed. A man would hardly be called degenerate for dressing in the fashion of ten years ago, however absurd he might appear; but feeble-mindedness, disloyalty, cruelty, irresponsibility, or gross dissipation might be so called, since it would seem that these must always be detrimental to the common life.
It is useful to distinguish between definite and indefinite degeneracy, the former being such as is ascertainable in some recognized way, as by medical examination or legal process—for example, idiocy, crime, and alcoholism. The indefinite sort, such as dishonesty, selfishness, instability of character, and sensuality—of kinds within the law—may be strongly condemned although not ascertainable in the same way. Indeed this latter may well be the more harmful, because it is less stigmatized and isolated, more likely to mingle in the social current and exert a pernicious influence. A feeble-minded person who is legally recognized as such and put in a special institution is harmless compared with one not so recognized who remains in the world to demoralize others and breed a family of incompetent children; and in like manner the out-and-out housebreakers and assassins do far less harm than the men of ability and influence whose deeds are no better but who are clever enough to escape a definite stigma.