Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/69

 A PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY OF REVOLUTIONS 53

governments, however, are only one of many conditions favor- able to social immobility. Authoritative religions which have glorified a past and put under ban all progress have also had much to do with creating social inflexibility. Again, the mental character of a race or people has much to do with the adapta- bility and progressiveness of the social groups which it forms, and some writers would make this the chief factor. Finally, it is well known that in societies without any of the impediments of despotic government, authoritative ecclesiasticism, or inferior racial character, public sentiment, prejudice, fanaticism, and class interest can and do suppress free thought and free speech, and produce a relatively inflexible type of society.

Whatever the cause of their immobility, societies with inflex- ible habits and institutions are bound to have trouble. The conditions of social life rapidly change, and opposing forces accumulate until, sooner or later, the old habit is overwhelmed. Under these conditions the breakdown of the old habit is sharp and sudden; and the society, being unused to the process of readjustment, and largely lacking the machinery therefor, is unable for a greater or less length of time to reconstruct its habits. There ensues, in consequence, a period of confusion and uncertainty in which competing interests in the society strive for the mastery. If the breakdown under these conditions be that of a habit which affects the whole social life-process, and especially the system of social control, we have a revolution. It is consequent upon such a breakdown of social habit, then, that the phenomena of revolutions arise.

But before considering some of these phenomena in detail, let us note somewhat more concretely how the old habits and institu- tions are overthrown. Of course, the opposing forces must embody themselves in a party of opposition or revolt. This party is composed, on the whole, of those individuals whom the changed conditions of social life most affect, those on whom the old social habits set least easily. The psychology of the revolt of large numbers of men to an established social order is, at bot- tom, a simple matter. It is simply a case of the breakdown of a social habit at its weakest point, that is, among those individuals