Social control

Edward Alsworth Ross

Parution le 27/10/2023

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Résumé

Even when sociology outgrows the stage of vealiness, so that the question "What is society?" can be relegated from the beginning of a text-book to the end, we shall still feel the need of expressing in a few words the characteristics that mark off a true society from all manner of aggregates and combinations of men. This compels us to look for these marks, and having found them to arrange them in order of importance, the essential features first, the non-essential last. In seeking that which is most distinctive in society, it is not necessary to pause at the threshold, finger on lip, and contemplate the outlines of a colossal Something, Leviathan, Superorganism, Social Organism, Social Body or other amorphous monster, composed of millions of human beings, and having distinct parts, motions, activities and aims. Society there certainly is, but it is better to begin the study of the human complex by surveying its work, rather than by describing a half-mythical entity.

We observe two broadly contrasted types of human life-the isolated, admitting only of the family, and the associated. Between these types of life, and between the men and women who lead them, are certain great contrasts that must be due to the presence or absence of association. By the difference between the lone man and the social man, between the associated state and the life of single units or pairs, we can gauge the sociologic problem. The changes that attend association afford the best evidence that there exists a source of influence worthy of most zealous study. It is by these signs and proofs of transforming power in the individual life that we come to discern in the human swarm the presence of that we call "society."