The Basis of Social Relations: A Study in Ethnic PsychologyBrinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
Science
The Basis of Social Relations: A Study in Ethnic Psychology
Brinton, Daniel G. (Daniel Garrison)
Ethnopsychology; Sociology
At the risk of needless repetition I again emphasise the fact that
Ethnic Psychology, the group-mind, is a product of social relations, a
result of aggregation, and cannot be fully explained by the processes of
the individual mind. The resemblances between them are analogies, not
homologies. They act and react, one on the other, with the force of
independent psychic entities.
The general proposition to this effect I have laid down in the second
chapter of Part I. Now I shall go more into detail and examine just what
influences the ethnic mind brings to bear upon that of the individual to
bring it into _rapport_ with itself, to make it conform to the mass, to
expunge, in fact, all that is individual within it.
I have also briefly but sufficiently referred to the psychologic
measures by which this is accomplished, such as imitation, opposition,
and continuity, by which the anti-social instincts are curbed, but at
the same time originality and independence are also often crushed.
It remains to point out the exact instruments which the group-mind
employs in this process and to estimate their relative force.
These may be classified under five headings: Language, Law, Religion,
Occupation, and Social Relations. This is in the order of the influence
which they generally exert on the individual mind, which influence is to
be understood as reciprocal, the individual working most potently on the
ethnic mind in the same order of instruments. It is true, however, that
the relative potency of each of them varies considerably with the
condition of culture. Let us briefly examine their several
characteristics.
_Language._—Of all bonds which unite men, none other is so strong as
language. This, indeed, it is which first developed the human in man. I
have shown that the one distinguishing trait which divides man from
brute is his power of general conceptions under symbols. The word
“language” provides the symbol. To form words is the necessary first
step in reasoning; to attach to words precise meanings, perfect
connotations, is the main effort of all subsequent reasonings. Words are
the storehouse of all knowledge; they are the tools of the mind, by
which all its constructions are framed.
Language is the involuntary product of the human intellect. The man
speaks with like spontaneity as the dog barks or the bird sings; but the
brute’s inarticulate cry expresses mere emotion, while the man’s
articulate sounds convey thought.
Language is a proof of man’s original social nature. It is impossible to
explain it as other than the action of a group. It is due directly to
the need of others felt by each. The individual alone could never form a
speech, and hence he could never clearly think; for thought, for
clearness, needs not only creation but expression. We never fully
understand or fully believe, until another understands us and believes
with us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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