Folkways. William Graham Sumner

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СКАЧАТЬ evil mores, that is, mores which are not adapted to welfare, so that a group may fall into vicious mores just as an individual falls into vicious habits.

104. Illustrations. This was well illustrated at Byzantium. The development of courtesans and prostitutes into a great and flourishing institution; the political rule, by palace intrigues, of favorites, women, and eunuchs; the decisive interference of royal guards; the vices of public amusements and baths; the miseries and calamities of talented men and the consequent elimination of that class from the society; the sycophancy of clients; the servitude of peasants and artisans, with economic exhaustion as a consequence; demonism, fanaticism, and superstition in religion, combined with extravagant controversies over pedantic trifles—such are some of the phenomena of mores disordered by divorce from sober interests, and complicated by arbitrary dogmas of politics and religion, not forgetting the brutal and ignorant measures of selfish rulers. In the Merovingian kingdom barbaric and corrupt Roman mores were intermingled in a period of turmoil. In the Renaissance in Italy all the taboos were broken down, or had lost their sanctions, and vice and crime ran riot through social disorder. As to the degeneracy of mores, we meet with a current opinion that in time the mores tend to "run down," by the side of another current opinion that there is, in time, a tendency of the mores to become more refined and purer. If the life conditions do not change, there is no reason at all why the mores should change. Some barbarian peoples have brought their mores into true adjustment to their life conditions, and have gone on for centuries without change. What is true, however, is that there are periods of social advance and periods of social decline, that is, advance or decline in economic power, material prosperity, and group strength for war. In either case all the mores fall into a character, temper, and spirit which conform to the situation. The early centuries of the Christian era were a period of decline. Tertullian121 has a passage in which he describes in enthusiastic terms the prosperity and progress of his time (end of the second century). He did not perceive that society was in a conjuncture of decline. Many, however, from the time of Augustus saw evil coming. The splendors of the empire did not delude them. Tacitus feared evil from the Germans; others from the Parthians.122 The population of the Roman empire felt its inferiority to its ancestors. One thing after another gave way. Nothing could serve as a fulcrum for resisting decline, or producing recovery. In such a period despair wins control. The philosophy is pessimistic. The world is supposed to be coming to an end. Life is not valued. Ascetic practices fall in with the prevailing temper. Martyrdom has no great terrors; such as it has can be overcome by a little enthusiasm. Inroads of barbarians only add a little to the other woes, or hasten an end which is inevitable and is expected with resignation. At such a time a religion of demonism, other-worldliness, resignation, retirement from the world, and renunciation appeals both to those who want a dream of escape and to those who despair. Our own time, on the other hand, is one of advance on account of great unoccupied territories now opened at little or no cost to those who have nothing. Such a period is one of hope, power, and gain for the masses. Optimism is the philosophy. All the mores get their spirit from it. "Progress" is an object of faith. A philosophy of resignation and renunciation is unpopular. There is nothing which we cannot do, and will not do, if we choose. No mistake will cost much. It can be easily rectified. In the Renaissance in Italy, besides the rejection of religion and the disorder of the state, there was a great movement of new power derived from the knowledge which was changing the life conditions. Great social forces were set loose. Men of heroic dimensions, both in good and ill, appeared in great numbers. They had astounding ability to accomplish achievements, and appeared to be possessed by devils, so superhuman was their energy in vice and crime as well as in war, art, discovery, and literature. No doubt this phenomenon of heroic men belongs to an age of advance with a great upbursting of new power under more favorable conditions. It is to be noticed also that reproduction responds to conditions of advance or decline. In decline marriage and family become irksome. Celibacy arises in the mores. In times of advance sex vice and excess reach a degree, as in the Renaissance, which seems to constitute a social paroxysm. The sex passion rises to a frenzy to which everything else is sacrificed. The notion that mores grow either better or worse by virtue of some inherent tendency is to be rejected. Goodness or badness of the mores is always relative only. Their purpose is to serve needs, and their quality is to be defined by the degree to which they do it. We have noticed that there is in them a strain towards consistency, due to the fact that they are more efficient when consistent. They are consistent also in aberration and error when they fall under the dominion of any one of the false tendencies above described. Hence we may have the phenomena of degenerate mores characterizing a period; being a case of change in the mores not due to any external and determinable cause, and analogous either to vice or disease.

      105. The correction of aberrations. It is possible to arrest or avert such an aberration in the mores at its beginning or in its early stages. It is, however, very difficult to do so, and it would be very difficult to find a case in which it has been done. Necessarily the effort to do it consists in a prophecy of consequences. Such prophecy does not appeal to any one who does not himself foresee error and harm. Prophets have always fared ill, because their predictions were unwelcome and they were unpopular. The pension system which has grown up in the United States since the civil war has often been criticised. It is an abuse of extreme peril in a democracy. Demagogues easily use it to corrupt the voters with their own money. It is believed that it will soon die out by its own limitations. There is, however, great doubt of this. It is more likely to cause other evil measures, in order that it may not die out. If we notice the way in which, in this case, people let a thing go on in order to avoid trouble, we may see how aberrant mores come in and grow strong.

106. Mores of advance or decline. Seeck thinks that a general weariness of life in the Greco-Roman world caused indifference to procreation. It accounts for the readiness to commit suicide and for the indifference to martyrdom. Life was hardly worth having. He says that during the whole period of the empire there was no improvement in the useful arts, no new invention, and no new device to facilitate production. Neither was there any improvement in the art of war, in literature, or the fine arts. As to transportation and commerce there seems to have been gain in the first centuries of the Christian era.123 Such inventions as were made required a very long time to work their way into general use. This sluggishness is most apparent in mental labor. After the time of Hadrian science cannot be said to have existed. The learned only cited their predecessors. Philosophy consisted in interpreting old texts. The only gains were in religion, and those all were won by Semites or other peoples of western Asia.124 Both Greeks and Romans exterminated the élite of their societies, and pursued a policy which really was a selection of the less worthy.125 Men fled from the world. They wanted to get out of human society. They especially wanted to escape the state. The reason was that they suffered pain in society, especially from the political institutions. The Christian church gave to this renunciation of social rights and duties the character of a religious virtue. "Pessimism took possession of the old peoples at the beginning of the Christian era. This world is regarded as delivered over to destruction. Men long for a better life and the immortality of the gods, outside of this transitory existence. To this sentiment corresponds the division of the universe into a world of light above, the realm of the good, and a world of darkness below, where the evil powers dwell. Men live in a middle space. Myths explained how our world arose as a mixture of good and evil, between the two realms of good and evil. Man belongs to both; to the world of light by his soul, to the world of darkness by his body. Men struggle for redemption from this world and from carnality, and long to soar through the series of the heavens, so as to come before the face of the highest God, there to live forever. This one can do after death, if he has during life undergone the necessary consecration, and has learned the words which can open heaven for him. In order to impart the consecration, and break the powers of darkness, one of the higher gods, the Redeemer-God, himself descended to earth. This religious theory is held by secret sects. The folk religions are dead. They can no longer satisfy the wants of men. Those of the same faiths СКАЧАТЬ