The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of HistoryPartridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Philosophy
The Psychology of Nations: A Contribution to the Philosophy of History
Partridge, G. E. (George Everett)
Education; History -- Philosophy; War
These changes in the social life in time of war are striking and
fundamental. To explain them would mean to explain social feeling
itself. We may say that these phenomena of the social life are
precisely the _herd reactions_ the biological writers speak of, but to
do so would mean, from our point of view, to ignore some very
significant aspects of human social life. It would ignore first of all
the ecstatic quality of the higher social life, which is indeed the
essential quality of the social spirit of war. Instead of saying that
this intensity of feeling is merely a reflex of an instinctive
reaction, we should say that it is the expression of, and in part the
satisfaction of, desires that are fulfilled in the social experience
of war. The intense social life is craved, not as an instinctive
reaction, but as a complex state expressing explicit desires. The
craving for this social solidarity and ecstasy of social feeling is a
factor in the causes of war. What we experience socially in times of
peace is a society in which social feeling is narrow and provincial,
in which we are conscious of many antagonistic motives. This social
life fails to satisfy the desires which are seeking expression in the
social life. That war is in part a creation of the social impulse
seeking expression may be assumed from the nature of the social
feelings that are excited in war. That such social feeling is a
creation in the sense that it is desired, we see if in no other way in
the fact that social ecstasy is the most universal form of
satisfaction of all those impulses which fuse in the intoxication
impulse, where we recognize it as the craving for an abundant or real
life. Life is most real in its intensely dramatic social forms. Social
ecstasy is in part a conscious adaptation. It is something that is
desired and induced, and artificially cultivated in various ways,
especially by a variety of aesthetic social experiences, and in the
cults of intoxication. Alcohol has been used specifically throughout
the world and from the beginning at least of the historical period for
the purpose of creating social feeling. Patriotism is in part, we may
say, a cultivated, social emotion, and in the art of manners we see
the social life given forms which will increase its susceptibility to
suggestion, its persuasive force and its organized expression. Such
facts show us social emotion which is something more than the feeling
side of an instinctive reaction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account