Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/205

 THE SCOPE OF SOCIOLOGY 19 1

a claim to be a spiritual integer, an undiminished unit among like whole units. The German term Selbstgefuhl seems to con- tain more traces than any English equivalent of this instinctive impulse to assert the full measure of personality. The Germans talk also of " personliche Geltung," "counting for all that one is essentially worth," and this again seems to be an utterance of the native human instinct. The privilege of standing over against his fellow, with the assured franchise of equal freedom of self- expression, is an implicit demand of every unspoiled man. The demand is not primarily an assertion of "equality," in the sense in which the idea is notoriously abused by pseudo-democrats. It is the demand that, such as I am, with such sort and size of merit as I personally possess, I may be permitted to assert myself, without suppression or subversion by the arrogation of others. The inherent desire of each man to see himself reflected at full height in his neighbor's eye is a factor to be counted on in calculation of every social equation, just as positively as each individual's desire for food and sleep. Another German word frequently in proletarian use is "Anerkennung" It loses some of its force when we render it " recognition," because in America the latter term has narrow political associations. The root of the matter is desire not to be socially discounted in accordance with any fictitious scale, but to be taken at full value. This demand is a very real and strong factor in American labor agitations, although it might have been more clearly expressed and more consistently urged. "We want to be treated like men" means not alone demand for higher wages, but for opportunity to be accounted as men in the councils of men. It means assertion of right to have feelings respected and opinions weighed and judgments considered on their merits, instead of having them summarily quashed at the dictation of other men's interests.

The spontaneity of our demand for the privilege of personal integrity may be detected indirectly in our involuntary resent- ment against violations of this relation. A case in point is the custom, long familiar in royal and noble families, of having in the castle a scapegoat in the person of a boy of plebeian birth and of equal age with the heir of the lordly house. The mission