Human Nature and Conduct: An introduction to social psychologyDewey, John
Philosophy
Human Nature and Conduct: An introduction to social psychology
Dewey, John
Habit; Social psychology
But, as we have already noted, if an individual be isolated in this
fashion, along with the fact of primacy of instinct we find also the
fact of death. The inchoate and scattered impulses of an infant do not
coordinate into serviceable powers except through social dependencies
and companionships. His impulses are merely starting points for
assimilation of the knowledge and skill of the more matured beings upon
whom he depends. They are tentacles sent out to gather that nutrition
from customs which will in time render the infant capable of independent
action. They are agencies for transfer of existing social power into
personal ability; they are means of reconstructive growth. Abandon an
impossible individualistic psychology, and we arrive at the fact that
native activities are organs of re-organization and re-adjustment. The
hen precedes the egg. But nevertheless this particular egg may be so
treated as to modify the future type of hen.
II
In the case of the young it is patent that impulses are highly flexible
starting points for activities which are diversified according to the
ways in which they are used. Any impulse may become organized into
almost any disposition according to the way it interacts with
surroundings. Fear may become abject cowardice, prudent caution,
reverence for superiors or respect for equals; an agency for credulous
swallowing of absurd superstitions or for wary scepticism. A man may be
chiefly afraid of the spirits of his ancestors, of officials, of
arousing the disapproval of his associates, of being deceived, of fresh
air, or of Bolshevism. The actual outcome depends upon how the impulse
of fear is interwoven with other impulses. This depends in turn upon the
outlets and inhibitions supplied by the social environment.
In a definite sense, then, a human society is always starting afresh. It
is always in process of renewing, and it endures only because of
renewal. We speak of the peoples of southern Europe as Latin peoples.
Their existing languages depart widely from one another and from the
Latin mother tongue. Yet there never was a day when this alteration of
speech was intentional or explicit. Persons always meant to reproduce
the speech they heard from their elders and supposed they were
succeeding. This fact may stand as a kind of symbol of the
reconstruction wrought in habits because of the fact that they can be
transmitted and be made to endure only through the medium of the crude
activities of the young or through contact with persons having different
habits.
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