A history of social thoughtBogardus, Emory S. (Emory Stephen)
History
A history of social thought
Bogardus, Emory S. (Emory Stephen)
Social psychology; Sociology -- History
Social innovation is invention. New ideas often appear accidentally.
The mind in its exuberance coins new phrases, catches new glimpses
of reality, and creates ideas which are contrary to all that is
established and supposedly true.
(3) Ward’s third law of progress is called conation. This concept
refers to social effort which is carried on naturally to satisfy
desire, to preserve or continue life, to modify the surroundings. In
satisfying normally the gregarious desires, the individual advances
the cause of social progress. In preserving the life of the child,
the mother presumably contributes to the welfare of the race. The
sacrifices which parents make in behalf of children are efforts which
further the welfare of society. Every constructive modification
of either the physical or spiritual environment benefits mankind.
Conation is thus a term which covers a multitude of activities that
are performed in the ordinary course of daily life, and which
unconsciously to the doers are adding to the sum total of human welfare.
(4) The fourth dynamic principle which Ward described has already been
discussed, namely, the principle of social telesis. The possibilities
in social telesis are illimitable. Social telesis can turn the passions
and desires of men into socially useful channels. These passions are
bad only when directed to wrong ends. They are like fire--they can
destroy or they can refine. If individuals as members of society could
develop prevision and work together for societary ends, they would be
able to transform the world.
Ward believed that greatness does not rest so much in intellectual
power as in emotional force. He had great faith in persons of average
intellectual ability who are ambitious. It thus becomes the part of
wisdom for society to educate wisely the average intelligence. Ward
challenged the idea that only a very few persons are geniuses and
that these individuals, by virtue of their superior abilities, will
uniformly overcome their environments. He held that genius is largely a
matter of focalization of psychic energy, and that by this process all
individuals may have the honor of contributing something valuable to
civilization.
Ward pointed out that geniuses are as likely to appear in one social
stratum as in another, among the poor as among the healthy, in the
hovel as in the palace. He also demonstrated how society allows genius
and talent to be ruthlessly destroyed among the lower classes through
denial of opportunity. As a solution for this problem, Ward advocated
social distribution, that is, the distribution of all useful knowledge
to all humanity everywhere. A scientific system needs to be perfected
for the more thorough and equal distribution of the great volume of
valuable knowledge which has already been discovered. Ward was a strong
advocate of the socialization of education.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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