Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/567

 SOCIAL CONTROL 553

see these in the concrete, consider how it is that the soldier comes to regard as despicable that prudent concern for one's safety which is instinctive and which is commended in other walks of life. There is first the fact that contempt of danger, little needed elsewhere, is absolutely necessary to the business of fighting. Those dependent on the success of the fighting force, i. e., all the rest of society, will see to it that courage is emphasized in the soldier type. Secondly, the leaders of the soldiers, whether self-devoted or not, perceiving that profes- sional success with all the glory and personal aggrandizement it brings depends on the inspiring of courage in their men, will impress this quality with a zeal certainly no less than that of an advocate for his client or a politician for his party. In the third place, courage bepraised and besung in one generation will shine before the eyes of the next generation with a prestige it could never have acquired in a day.

This last fact should be dwelt on. For it is chiefly by being handed down embedded in transmitted culture literature, art, religion, codes, discipline, systems of morals that types of character developed in the social interest win such authority and prestige that they are accepted as ideals, not merely by the led, but even by the leaders and guides of society. This lifting of social type higher than actual social character, which might at first appear to be mere shallow artifice, is therefore, in reality the outcome of a long social growth. It is from the summit of twenty centuries of myth and legend, song and story, faith and aspiration that certain types of today look down upon us. Social control is based not only on the ascendancy of the many over the one, of the wise over the simple, of the rulers over the ruled, but yet more on the domination of the living by the dead.

We have yet to show how the individual is induced to admire the social type. What is meant by "holding up" a pattern ?

Let us consider how the social model of a soldier embodying such elements as courage, prowess, endurance, fidelity, frank- ness, loyalty, self-sacrifice, none of them easy for ordinary human