Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/480

 464 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

accentuated as soon as color-contrast becomes indelibly asso- ciated with mental, moral, and social differences. Each race, moreover, works out its ideal of personal beauty on the basis of its distinctive physical traits, and the individuals of another race are apt to strike it as ugly and repulsive.

Some light on the problem is got by noting what points of difference are emphasized when men are coining insulting epithets to hurl at their enemies. With the ruder man personal appearance and habits count for much. One thinks of his foes as " niggers," " greasers," " roundheads," " fuzzy-wuzzies," " red-necks," " pale- faces," "red-haired devils," "brown monkeys," "redskins," "uncircumcised," "dagoes," "frog-eaters," "rat-eaters," etc. Somewhat higher is the type that thinks of his enemy as a "parley-voo," "goddam," "mick," "heathen," "infidel," "here- tic," or " Papist." Difference in speech is a serious bar to sym- pathy, for at first another's speech always sounds to us like the gibberish of a chattering ape. The higher type of man is struck by cultural differences only, and detests those who are " savage," "barbarous," or "benighted."

It would seem that, the higher the plane of culture, the more one is affected by agreement or difference in mental content. Among the contents of the mind, religious beliefs are more attended to than other general ideas, and the ideals of life than religious beliefs. The discovery of agreement in feeling is more socializing than intellectual agreement. A common enthusiasm for a symbol, or a common love for a chief or dynasty, is of marked socializing value. Unlike persons or groups draw together in fellowship if third parties embrace them in the same envy or hatred. Realizing that outsiders think of them as a group tends to form persons into a group. The perception of a common purpose gradually inspires sympathy, and thus are social- ized those who are physically different, but who nevertheless have a community of interest.

Still it is not entirely clear under what conditions those who have a vital common interest to promote will feel and act together. We now understand fairly well the circumstances that favor or oppose the rise of a group-individuality in local communities,