The Group Mind: A Sketch of the Principles of Collective Psychology: With Some Attempt to Apply Them to the Interpretation of National Life and CharacterMcDougall, William
Science
The Group Mind: A Sketch of the Principles of Collective Psychology: With Some Attempt to Apply Them to the Interpretation of National Life and Character
McDougall, William
Ethnopsychology; National characteristics; Social psychology
I lay stress on the satisfaction which group self-consciousness brings
as a condition or cause of these complexities of savage society,
because, I think, it has been unduly neglected as a socialising factor
and a determinant of the forms of association. If we ask—What are the
sources of this satisfaction?—we may find two answers. First, the
consciousness of the group and of oneself as a member of it brings a
sense of power and security, an assurance of sympathy and co-operation,
a moral and physical support without which man can hardly face the
world. In a thousand situations it is a source of settled opinions and
of definite guidance of conduct which obviates the most uncomfortable
and difficult necessity of exerting independent judgment and making up
one’s own mind. And in many such situations, not only does the savage
find a definite code prescribed for his guidance, but he shares the
collective emotion and feels the collective impulse that carries him on
to action without hesitation or timidity.
Secondly, we may, I think, go back to a very fundamental principle of
instinctive life, the principle, namely, that, in gregarious animals,
the satisfaction of the gregarious impulse is greater or more complete
the more nearly alike are the individuals congregated together. This
seems to be true of the animals, but it is true in a higher degree of
man; and, in proportion as his mind becomes more specialised and
refined, the more exacting is he in this respect. To the uncultivated
any society is better than none; but in the cultivated classes we become
extraordinarily exacting; we find the gregarious satisfaction in our own
peculiar _set_ only—a process carried furthest, perhaps, in university
circles. In savage life this shows itself in practices which accentuate
the likeness of members of a group and mark it off more distinctly from
other groups—for example, totems, peculiarities of dress, ornaments and
ceremonies; things which are closely paralleled by the clubs, blazers,
colours, cries, and so forth of our undergraduate communities.
The life of the savage, then, is in general dominated by that of the
group; and this domination is not effected by physical force or
compulsion (save in exceptional instances) but by the group spirit which
is inevitably developed in the mind of the savage child by the material
circumstances of his life and by the traditions, especially the
superstitious and religious traditions, of his community. Such group
self-consciousness is the principal moralising influence, and to this
influence is due in the main the fact that savages conform so strictly
to their accepted moral codes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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