Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/615

 PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF SOCIETY 6oi

is, however, it must be admitted, no objection to employing the phrase "social co-operation" in a very broad way to designate the sum of social co-ordinations for social co-operation in this broad- est sense is made up of social co-ordinations ; popularly, however, social co-operation is used in a much narrower sense as implying a high degree of reflective consciousness on the part of the indi- viduals whose activity is co-ordinated. Even by some scientific writers the term co-operation is used in exactly this way. Thus, we find Professor Giddings, for example, saying, "There can be no co-operation except among those who are, in good degree, like minded, and who are so far conscious of their agreement that they can intelligently plan their common activity." It is manifest that such social co-operation as Professor Giddings is speaking of, implies a high degree of reflective consciousness which hardly exists until man is reached in the animal scale and is not present even in many human groups. The term "social co-ordination" has been used to express the connection between the activities of a mass of individuals living together and carrying on, through interstimulation and response, a common life-process, because it is a colorless term, not implying the high degree of consciousness which sometimes attaches to the phrase "social co-operation." Manifestly, as has already been said, all social organization is an outcome of social co-ordination and social co-ordination can, therefore, be regarded as synonymous with social co-operation only in the sense that all social organization implies co-operation. Social co-ordinations have both objective and subjective ex- pressions in the collective life. Their objective expression is chiefly in those relatively uniform and universal ways of action to which Professor Sumner has given the name "folkways." The folkways are simply regular modes of social activity in a given group of people. The better expression would probably be social habits, since these regular modes of social activity are not, by any means, confined to the large group which we term a folk or a people, but are found in the smallest groups of society as well. Every family group, for example, illustrates these regular modes of social activity which we have termed social co-ordina- tions. The family, indeed, beautifully illustrates the whole