If social unrest is a symptom of disorganization, then the psychic epidemics, in which all the phenomena of social unrest and contagion are intensified, is evidence positive that disorganization exists. Social disorganization must be considered in relation to reorganization. All change involves a certain amount of disorganization. In order that an individual may make new adjustments and establish new habits it is inevitable that old habits should be broken up, and in order that society may reform an existing social order a certain amount of disorganization is inevitable. Social unrest may be, therefore, a symptom of health. It is only when the process of disorganization goes on so rapidly and to such an extent that the whole existing social structure is impaired, and society is, for that reason, not able to readjust itself, that unrest is to be regarded as a pathological symptom.
There is reason to believe, contrary to the popular conception, that the immigrant in America, particularly in the urban environment, accommodates himself too quickly rather than too slowly to American life. Statistics show, particularly in the second generation, a notable increase in juvenile delinquency, and this seems to be due to the fact that in America the relation between parents and children is reversed. Owing to the children's better knowledge of English and their more rapid accommodation to the conditions of American life, parents become dependent upon their children rather than the children dependent upon their parents.
Social epidemics, however, are evidence of a social disintegration due to more fundamental and widespread disorders. The literature has recorded the facts but writers have usually interpreted the phenomena in medical rather than sociological terms. Stoll, in his very interesting but rather miscellaneous collection of materials upon primitive life, disposes of the phenomena by giving them another name. His volume is entitled Suggestion and Hypnotism in Folk Psychology.[314] Friedmann, in his monograph, Über Wahnideen im Völkerleben, is disposed as a psychiatrist to treat the whole matter as a form of "social" insanity.
3. Mass Movements
In spite of the abundance of materials on the subject of mass movements no attempt has been made as yet to collect and classify them. There have been a number of interesting books in the field of collective psychology, so called mainly by French and Italian writers—Sighele, Rossi, Tarde, and Le Bon—but they are not based on a systematic study of cases. The general assumption has been that the facts are so obvious that any attempt to study systematically the mechanisms involved would amount to little more than academic elaboration of what is already obvious, a restatement in more abstract terms of what is already familiar.
On the other hand, shepherds and cowboys, out of their experience in handling cattle and sheep, have learned that the flock and the herd have quite peculiar and characteristic modes of collective behavior which it is necessary to know if one is to handle them successfully. At the same time, practical politicians who make a profession of herding voters, getting them out to the polls at the times they are needed and determining for them, by the familiar campaign devices, the persons and the issues for which they are to cast their ballots, have worked out very definite methods for dealing with masses of people, so that they are able to predict the outcome with considerable accuracy far in advance of an election and make their dispositions accordingly.
Political manipulation of the movements and tendencies of popular opinion has now reached a point of perfection where it can and will be studied systematically. During the world-war it was studied, and all the knowledge which advertisers, newspaper men, and psychologists possessed was used to win the war.
Propaganda is now recognized as part of the grand strategy of war. Not only political and diplomatic victories, but battles were won during the world-war by the aid of this insidious weapon. The great victory of the Austrian and German armies at Caporetto which in a few days wiped out all the hard-won successes of the Italian armies was prepared by a psychic attack on the morale of the troops at the front and a defeatist campaign among the Italian population back of the lines.
In the battle of Caporetto the morale of the troops at the front was undermined by sending postal cards and letters to individual soldiers stating that their wives were in illicit relations with officers and soldiers of the allies. Copies of Roman and Milanese newspapers were forged and absolute facsimiles of familiar journals were secretly distributed or dropped from Austrian aeroplanes over the Italian lines. These papers contained sensational articles telling the Italians that Austria was in revolt, that Emperor Charles had been killed. Accompanying these were other articles describing bread riots throughout Italy and stating that the Italian government, unable to quell them with its own forces, had sent British and French re-enforcing troops and even Zulus into the cities, and that these troops were shooting down women and children and priests without mercy.