Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/827

 SOCIAL CONTROL 813

contrary, we may expect the more far-reaching and pervasive means of control, such as suggestion, ideals, and social valua- tions, to be used in the twentieth century much more freely and consciously than they now are. The ground for such belief is the visible disruption of the community and the rise of society as claimant of all allegiances and object of all duties. So far as community extends people naturally keep themselves orderly, and there is no call to put them under the yoke of an elaborate discipline. The sense of a common life that grows up in the family, the kindred, the neighborhood, the circle of companions, or the band of comrades, leads relatives, neighbors and mates to love and understand one another, to yield one to another, and to observe those forbearances and offices that make associate life a success. To people abiding in such natural relations the apparatus of control appears as an impediment and an imperti- nence. The reaction of man against man and a kind of recipro- cal constraint will, of course, show itself among kinsmen and neighbors ; but of control, formal and organized, there will be little sign.

Now these natural bonds are ceasing to bind men as men must be bound in the aggregates of today. Kinship has lost its sacred significance and binding force. Social erosion has reduced the family to parents and young. Marriage has become a contract, terminable almost at pleasure. Nearness of dwelling means little in the country and nothing in the town. To the intimacy of the country-side succeeds the "multitudinous deso- lation" of the city. The workingman has become a bird of pas- sage. Touch-and-go acquaintanceship takes the place of those lasting attachments that form between neighbors who have lived, labored and holidayed together.

It is true that while the local group dissolves new forms of union arise. Friendship is freer, and hence firmer, and there are bonds of fellowship growing up between co-religionists, fellow- craftsmen, or people of the same social class. But these forms of social feeling repose not on blood or nearness or intercourse, but on personal preference. They are after the manner of