Folkways

FUNDAMENTAL NOTIONS OF THE FOLKWAYS AND OF THE MORES

Definition and mode of origin of the folkways.—The folkways are a societal force.—Folkways are made unconsciously.—Impulse and instinct; primeval stupidity; magic.—The strain of improvement and consistency.—The aleatory element.—All origins are lost in mystery.—Spencer on primitive custom.—Good and bad luck; ills of life; goodness and happiness.—Illustrations.—Immortality and compensation.—Tradition and its restraints.—The concepts of “primitive society”; “we-groups” and “others-groups.”—Sentiments in the in-group towards out-groups.—Ethnocentrism.—Illustrations.—Patriotism.—Chauvinism.—The struggle for existence and the competition of life; antagonistic coöperation.—Four motives: hunger, love, vanity, fear.—The process of making folkways.—Suggestion and suggestibility.—Suggestion in education.—Manias.—Suggestion in politics.—Suggestion and criticism.—Folkways based on false inferences.—Harmful folkways.—How “true” and “right” are found.—The folkways are right; rights; morals.—The folkways are true.—Relations of world philosophy to folkways.—Definition of the mores.—Taboos.—No primitive philosophizing; myths; fables; notion of social welfare.—The imaginative element.—The ethical policy and the success policy.—Recapitulation.—Scope and method of the mores.—Integration of the mores of a group or age.—Purpose of the present work.—Why use the word “mores.”—The mores are a directive force.—Consistency in the mores.—The mores of subgroups.—What are classes?—Classes rated by societal value.—Class; race; group solidarity.—The masses and the mores.—Fallacies about the classes and the masses.—Action of the masses on ideas.—Organization of the masses.—Institutions of civil liberty.—The common man.—The “people”; popular impulses.—Agitation.—The ruling element in the masses.—The mores and institutions.—Laws.—How laws and institutions differ from mores.—Difference between mores and some cognate things.—Goodness or badness of the mores.—More exact definition of the mores.—Ritual.—The ritual of the mores.—Group interests and policy.—Group interests and folkways.—Force in the folkways.—Might and right.—Status.—Conventionalization.—Conventions indispensable.—The “ethos” or group character; Japan.—Chinese ethos.—Hindoo ethos.—European ethos.