CHAPTER XII

THE COGNITIVE ASPECT OF SOCIALIZATION

By the cognitive aspect in socialization is meant not only the creation and modification of group and personal opinion, but also the use and improvement of social and individual technique, a function of the mental interaction of the members of the group. The fund of knowledge of the group, its proverbs, its creed, and its theory; the technical equipment of the group, its tools, its weapons, its medical remedies, and its types of skill; its approved ways of doing things, its standards, and its ideals are all social developments in the knowledge phase of life. Before entering into an analysis of the function of intellectual development in the socialization of the person, we shall consider the rôle that socialization in the noetic phase has played in human experience and how far this evolution in the intellectual side of life multiplies the social spirit, or facilitates and rationalizes its expression.

The cognitive aspect of consciousness in its growth, not only (a) is closely dependent upon socialization, but (b) has played a rôle of increasing importance in promoting the socializing process. The development of the art of language, so obviously at once effect and cause of social interrelations, made possible1 abstraction and the evolution of the higher forms of reasoning out of the germ present in perception. The invention of writing and of the printing-press, feasible only because of the existence of a leisure class in a stable social order, facilitated the communication between the minds of every age, thereby inestimably promoting the accumulation, criticism, and the diffusion of knowledge. Subtract from knowledge what communication has given us, and what little would be original! And of that little, what fraction would remain ours were we to take away what communication has made possible for us to acquire?

The effective play and scope of cognition depends in its origin on the presence of simple social relations, but in its development

1Wundt, Outlines of Psychology (Judd's trans., 1907), p. 342. 2Supra, p. 124.

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upon the higher organization of human association. From the time that consciousness first came into play in forwarding social progress, the purposive control of activity, both of and by the individual and the group, has become a factor of ever-increasing importance. The earliest family groups, and so perhaps even primeval society itself, were formed with a minimum of purposive control. But the organizing of the hunting party, or of the war-band, was distinctively purposive in contrast with the instinctive character of aggregation in the herd and the pack of the animal stage. In recorded history, the process is patent. When a Caesar reorganizes the government of a world, or a group of barons wrest Magna Charta from a lawless king, or a Constitutional Convention frames the fundamental code for a nation, the purposive and deliberative control of political relations stands out in clear relief. Nor is the state the sole institution whose forms are shaped by conscious control. We do not always perceive that our legal system is an arrangement which embodies the experience of generations of men consciously engaged in regulating the actions of persons and in securing the civil rights of the individual. The amount of conscious thought and study that has gone into determining the form and content of our school system is often underestimated by the critics of our present educational methods. A survey of the evolution of industry will make evident the influence of men of initiative and ideas, who individually and in association have modified economic organization. In every institutionalized portion of life purposive and rational control is evident.

While the presence of the rational element in activity does not necessarily imply socialized activity, socialization would be abortive without the rationalizing function of the cognitive element. The conscious formation of ends, the appreciation of the relations of cause and effect, the consciousness of meaning in life, all depend upon the evolution of cognition. Without this development socialization would be little more than the innately determined expression of the sexual, paternal, and gregarious instincts. The slowness of the march of social progress in the past has been largely due to the dominance of the affective nature of man over his rational nature. For example, the emotion of pity is satisfied by an act which will relieve suffering, while an outraged sense of justice, if it cannot find immediate expression upon the perpetrator of the

wrong, will call into play the rational element in the effort to discover causes. Without the presence of the rational element in human nature, philanthropy would be the extent of social reform.

This introduction is sufficient to indicate the function and character of the cognitive element in socialization in the past. What does socialization require in the intellectual development of the person at the present time? From the standpoint of the cognitive element in experience, socialization means at least three rather welldefined aims: (1) The socializing of the fund of verified knowledge by its diffusion throughout the members of the group is indispensable to social progress. (2) The participation of the person in the common store of knowledge is the first step toward efficient and democratic participation in the politics and the industry of the twentieth century. (3) Participation by the person and by the group in the widest stretches of human experience is necessary for the sense of mastery over activity and for the completest control of life.

Without any preliminary explanation these propositions will be considered in order.

1. In the theoretical sense, socialization, from the standpoint of intellectual development, has two objectives. First of all, it calls for the personal appropriation of the accumulated knowledge of the ages. Then, in the second place, it requires the participation of the individual in the constructive thinking and action of the twentieth century. These two aspects of the intellectual side of socialization may be named, respectively, its static and its dynamic characteristics. We shall consider (a) the static, and (b) the dynamic aspects of the theoretical side of the intellectual socializing process.

a) To Lester F. Ward is due the credit for emphasizing the rôle of the diffusion of knowledge as characteristic of socialization. His entire sociological system is built up about this conception. Social progress, he asserts, is due to the increment of knowledge. Human advance is conditioned by the rate of the increase in the store of scientific facts. At the present time, the advance

"Civilization has been brought about through human achievement, and human achievement consists almost entirely in knowledge."-Applied Sociology, p. 106.

4Ibid., pp. 82-83.

in knowledge comes only from the favored few, because science is a closed door to all but a fraction of the earth's population. In the degree, therefore, in which scientific principles become diffused, would social progress and improvement be accelerated. His book Applied Sociology is an argument for the theory of latent genius, and for the proposition that the radius of the diffusion of knowledge conditions achievement and social progress. No student of Ward can gainsay the generalization that the dissemination and creation of scientific knowledge constitutes, if not the dynamic, at any rate the directive agent in social progress.

Ward, as we see, practically limits socialization to the diffusion of verifiable information. The value of the recognition of the important socializing function of the diffusion of knowledge cannot be overestimated. Our appreciation of its rôle, nevertheless, has outrun our success in the practical application of the principle. Certainly we must admit that in the last generation there has been a tremendous advance both in the quantity and in the quality of scientific knowledge available to the people and an increase in the number of persons who have taken advantage of the opportunity presented. University extension, chautauquas, lyceum courses, workingmen's educational clubs, the daily and Sunday newspapers, the magazines, the mechanical applications of scientific advance, and other agencies as well, have united to promote the spread of knowledge throughout society. But the other side of the picture is disheartening. Society today illustrates only too well the truth in Pope's line, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." The mania for patent medicines, fasting fads, the fanaticism of anti-vaccinationists and anti-vivisectionists, the Christian Science craze, the delusion of Dowieism, our perennial "gold-brick" schemes, lynch-law, jingoism, the palaver and platitudes of the politician, the devices of the demagogue: all these are only a few of the illustrations which clearly indicate the serious defects in our machinery for the diffusion of knowledge. It is not likely that too great emphasis can be laid upon the imperative of socializing knowledge.

"Ibid., pp. 132, 106-7.

6"In my system, education means the 'universal distribution of extant knowledge.' It makes complete abstraction of all questions of discipline, culture, and research, and takes account solely of information.”—Ibid., p. 299.

The foregoing indictment reduces, in the last analysis, to the point that a tremendous gap exists between the specialist and the mass of people. Certainly this charge is not to be denied in toto. The accusation is all the more serious when it is pointed out that this chasm is not only one of intellectual aloofness, on the one hand, and inability to understand on the other, but, in addition," a certain contempt for the people on the part of the expert and a corresponding attitude, on the part of the mass, of distrust in regard to the disinterestedness of the specialist. So far, then, as the separation is one of sympathy, the difficulty lies in the affective rather than in the cognitive phase of socialization. So far, however, as the question is one of intellectual division, or so far as this results in an affective line of demarkation, it will be considered here. First of all, we must recognize the fact that the distinction is only relative, that the specialist in one department of activity is a part of the undifferentiated mass in regard to the other activities. At the same time it is true that as specialization increases, the problem of co-ordination also increases. Minute specialization must have as its corrective a comprehensive view of the entire state of knowledge.

To a large extent, the present situation contains within it the tendencies toward reform. With the advance of science in every phase of activity, a universally accepted standard of judgment is being evolved. The scientific method, common to men of the most diverse interests, is becoming one of the strongest unifying forces in society. Not only does the expert in one subject, therefore, have confidence in the specialist in another subject, but he can demand that the other submit to his examination not merely his conclusion, but his methods and his experiments. This general trend throughout society toward an appreciation of the value and the authority of science is plainly observable. The abortive tariff board was an indication of a desire for tariff revision by impartial experts. The immediate and unanimous acceptance by the public of the decision of the findings of the special committee of the University of Copenhagen in the Cook-Peary controversy over the discovery of the North Pole is a case in point. With the growth of popular interest and intelligence in all aspects of human experi"Croly, The Promise of American Life, 1909, p. 138.

Vincent, in unpublished manuscript.