Introduction to the Science of SociologyPark, Robert Ezra
General
Introduction to the Science of Sociology
Park, Robert Ezra
Sociology
Persons do not become a society by living in physical proximity any more
than a man ceases to be socially influenced by being so many feet or
miles removed from others. A book or a letter may institute a more
intimate association between human beings separated thousands of miles
from each other than exists between dwellers under the same roof.
Individuals do not even compose a social group because they all work for
a common end. The parts of a machine work with a maximum of
co-operativeness for a common result, but they do not form a community.
If, however, they were all cognizant of the common end and all
interested in it so that they regulated their specific activity in view
of it, then they would form a community. But this would involve
communication. Each would have to know what the other was about and
would have to have some way of keeping the other informed as to his own
purpose and progress. Consensus demands communications.
We are thus compelled to recognize that within even the most social
group there are many relations which are not as yet social. A large
number of human relationships in any social group are still upon the
machine-like plane. Individuals use one another so as to get desired
results, without reference to the emotional and intellectual disposition
and consent of those used. Such uses express physical superiority, or
superiority of position, skill, technical ability, and command of tools,
mechanical or fiscal. So far as the relations of parent and child,
teacher and pupil, employer and employee, governor and governed, remain
upon this level, they form no true social group, no matter how closely
their respective activities touch one another. Giving and taking of
orders modifies action and results, but does not of itself effect a
sharing of purposes, a communication of interests.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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