Introduction to the Science of Sociology Part 102

25. What, in your judgment, is the relation of personal compet.i.tion to the division of labor?

26. What examples of division of labor outside the economic field would you suggest?

27. What do you understand to be the relation of personal compet.i.tion and group compet.i.tion?

28. In what different ways does status (a) grow out of, and (b) prevent, the processes of personal compet.i.tion and group compet.i.tion?

29. To what extent, at the present time, is success in life determined by personal compet.i.tion, and social selection by status?

30. In what ways does the division of labor make for social solidarity?

31. What is the difference between social solidarity based upon like-mindedness and based upon diverse-mindedness?

FOOTNOTES:

[221] _Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology_, I, 15, 8.

[222] _Social Organization_, p. 4.

[223] A teacher in the public schools of Chicago came in possession of the following letter written to a friend in Mississippi by a Negro boy who had come to the city from the South two months previously. It ill.u.s.trates his rapid accommodation to the situation including the hostile Irish group (the Wentworth Avenue "Mickeys").

Dear leon I write to you--to let you hear from me--Boy you don't know the time we have with Sled. it Snow up here Regular.

We Play foot Ball. But Now we have So much Snow we don't Play foot Ball any More. We Ride on Sled. Boy I have a Sled call The king of The hill and She king to. tell Mrs. Sara that Coln Roscoe Conklin Simon Spoke at St Mark the church we Belong to.

Gus I havnt got chance to Beat But to Boy. Sack we show Runs them Mickeys. Boy them scoundle is bad on Wentworth Avenue.

Add 3123a Breton St Chi ill.

[224] From Daniel G. Brinton, _The Basis of Social Relations_, pp.

194-99. (Courtesy of G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1902.)

[225] From Dr. H. J. Nieboer, _Slavery as an Industrial System_, pp.

1-7. (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1910.)

[226] From Matthew G. Lewis, _Journal of a West India Proprietor_, pp.

60-337. (John Murray, 1834.)

[227] From "Modern Theories of Caste: Mr. Nesfield's Theory," Appendix V, in Sir Herbert Risley, _The People of India_, pp. 407-8. (W. Thacker & Co., 1915.)

[228] From Sir Herbert Risley, _The People of India_, pp. 130-39. (W.

Thacker & Co., 1915.)

[229] From Hugo Munsterberg, _Psychology, General and Applied_, pp.

259-64, (D. Appleton & Co., 1914.)

[230] Adapted from _Domestic Service_, by An Old Servant, pp. 10-110.

(Houghton Mifflin Co., 1917.)

[231] Adapted from a translation of Georg Simmel by Albion W. Small, "Superiority and Subordination," in the _American Journal of Sociology_, II (1896-97), 169-71.

[232] Adapted from a translation of Georg Simmel by Albion W. Small, "Superiority and Subordination," in the _American Journal of Sociology_, II (1896-97), 172-86.

[233] Adapted from a translation of Georg Simmel by Albion W. Small, "The Sociology of Conflict," in the _American Journal of Sociology_, IX (1903-4), 799-802.

[234] Adapted from a translation of Georg Simmel by Albion W. Small, "The Sociology of Conflict," in the _American Journal of Sociology_, IX (1903-4), 804-6.

[235] Adapted from Charles H. Cooley, "Personal Compet.i.tion," in _Economic Studies_, IV (1899), No. 2, 78-86.

[236] From Robert E. Park, "The City," in the _American Journal of Sociology_, XX (1915), 584-86.

[237] Translated and adapted from emile Durkheim, _La division du travail social_, pp. 24-209. (Felix Alcan, 1902.)

[238] _Pure Sociology_, p. 16.

[239] _Mental Development in the Child and the Race_, p. 23.

[240] _Supra_, pp. 218-19.

CHAPTER XI

a.s.sIMILATION

I. INTRODUCTION

1. Popular Conceptions of a.s.similation

The concept a.s.similation, so far as it has been defined in popular usage, gets its meaning from its relation to the problem of immigration.

The more concrete and familiar terms are the abstract noun Americanization and the verbs Americanize, Anglicize, Germanize, and the like. All of these words are intended to describe the process by which the culture of a community or a country is transmitted to an adopted citizen. Negatively, a.s.similation is a process of denationalization, and this is, in fact, the form it has taken in Europe.

The difference between Europe and America, in relation to the problem of cultures, is that in Europe difficulties have arisen from the forcible incorporation of minor cultural groups, i.e., nationalities, within the limits of a larger political unit, i.e., an empire. In America the problem has arisen from the voluntary migration to this country of peoples who have abandoned the political allegiances of the old country and are gradually acquiring the culture of the new. In both cases the problem has its source in an effort to establish and maintain a political order in a community that has no common culture. Fundamentally the problem of maintaining a democratic form of government in a southern village composed of whites and blacks, and the problem of maintaining an international order based on anything but force are the same. The ultimate basis of the existing moral and political order is still kins.h.i.+p and culture. Where neither exist, a political order, not based on caste or cla.s.s, is at least problematic.

a.s.similation, as popularly conceived in the United States, was expressed symbolically some years ago in Zangwill's dramatic parable of _The Melting Pot_. William Jennings Bryan has given oratorical expression to the faith in the beneficent outcome of the process: "Great has been the Greek, the Latin, the Slav, the Celt, the Teuton, and the Saxon; but greater than any of these is the American, who combines the virtues of them all."

a.s.similation, as thus conceived, is a natural and una.s.sisted process, and practice, if not policy, has been in accord with this laissez faire conception, which the outcome has apparently justified. In the United States, at any rate, the tempo of a.s.similation has been more rapid than elsewhere.

Closely akin to this "magic crucible" notion of a.s.similation is the theory of "like-mindedness." This idea was partly a product of Professor Giddings' theory of sociology, partly an outcome of the popular notion that similarities and h.o.m.ogeneity are identical with unity. The ideal of a.s.similation was conceived to be that of feeling, thinking, and acting alike. a.s.similation and socialization have both been described in these terms by contemporary sociologists.

Another and a different notion of a.s.similation or Americanization is based on the conviction that the immigrant has contributed in the past and may be expected in the future to contribute something of his own in temperament, culture, and philosophy of life to the future American civilization. This conception had its origin among the immigrants themselves, and has been formulated and interpreted by persons who are, like residents in social settlements, in close contact with them. This recognition of the diversity in the elements entering into the cultural process is not, of course, inconsistent with the expectation of an ultimate h.o.m.ogeneity of the product. It has called attention, at any rate, to the fact that the process of a.s.similation is concerned with differences quite as much as with likenesses.

2. The Sociology of a.s.similation

Accommodation has been described as a process of adjustment, that is, an organization of social relations and att.i.tudes to prevent or to reduce conflict, to control compet.i.tion, and to maintain a basis of security in the social order for persons and groups of divergent interests and types to carry on together their varied life-activities. Accommodation in the sense of the composition of conflict is invariably the goal of the political process.