Folkways. William Graham Sumner
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policy is to get influence in European politics. All the interference of Russia in European politics is harmful, menacing, and unjustifiable. She is not, in character, a European power, and she brings no contribution to European civilization, but the contrary. She has neither the capital nor the character to enable her to execute the share in the world's affairs which she is assuming. Her territorial extensions for two hundred years have been made at the cost of her internal strength. The latter has never been at all proportioned to the former. Consequently the debt and taxes due to her policy of expansion and territorial greatness have crushed her peasant class, and by their effect on agriculture have choked the sources of national strength. The people are peaceful and industrious, and their traditional mores are such that they would develop great productive power and in time rise to a strong civilization of a truly indigenous type, if they were free to use their powers in their own way to satisfy their interests as they experience them from the life conditions which they have to meet.
93. Emancipation in Russia and the United States. In the time of Peter the Great the ancient national mores of Russia were very strong and firmly established. They remain to this day, in the mass of the population, unchanged in their essential integrity. There is, amongst the upper classes, an imitation of French ways, but it is unimportant for the nation. The autocracy is what makes "Russia," as a political unit. The autocracy is the apex of a military system, by which a great territory has been gathered under one control. That operation has not affected the old mores of the people. The tsar Alexander II was convinced by reading the writings of the great literary coterie of the middle of the nineteenth century that serfdom ought to be abolished, and he determined that it should be done.106 It is not in the system of autocracy that the autocrat shall have original opinions and adopt an independent initiative. The men whom he ordered to abolish serfdom had to devise a method, and they devised one which was to appear satisfactory to the tsar, but was to protect the interests which they cared for. One is reminded of the devices of American politicians to satisfy the clamor of the moment, but to change nothing. The reform had but slight root in public opinion, and no sanction in the interests of the influential classes; quite the contrary. The consequence is that the abolition of serfdom has thrown Russian society into chaos, and as yet reconstruction upon the new system has made little growth. In the United States the abolition of slavery was accomplished by the North, which had no slaves and enforced emancipation by war on the South, which had them. The mores of the South were those of slavery in full and satisfactory operation, including social, religious, and philosophical notions adapted to slavery. The abolition of slavery in the northern states had been brought about by changes in conditions and interests. Emancipation in the South was produced by outside force against the mores of the whites there. The consequence has been forty years of economic, social, and political discord. In this case free institutions and mores in which free individual initiative is a leading element allow efforts towards social readjustment out of which a solution of the difficulties will come. New mores will be developed which will cover the situation with customs, habits, mutual concessions, and coöperation of interests, and these will produce a social philosophy consistent with the facts. The process is long, painful, and discouraging, but it contains its own guarantees.
94. Arbitrary change. We often meet with references to Abraham Lincoln and Alexander II as political heroes who set free millions of slaves or serfs "by a stroke of the pen." Such references are only flights of rhetoric. They entirely miss the apprehension of what it is to set men free, or to tear out of a society mores of long growth and wide reach. Circumstances may be such that a change which is imperative can be accomplished in no other way, but then the period of disorder and confusion is unavoidable. The stroke of the pen never does anything but order that this period shall begin.
95. Case of Japan. Japan offers a case of the voluntary resolution of the ruling class of a nation to abandon their mores and adopt those of other nations. The case is unique in history. Humbert says that the Japanese were in the first throes of internal revolution when foreigners intervened.107 Schallmeyer infers that the "adaptability of an intelligent and disciplined people is far greater than we, judging from other cases, have been wont to believe."108 Le Bon absolutely denies that culture can be transmitted from people to people. He says that the ruin of Japan is yet to come, from the attempt to adopt foreign ways.109 The best information is that the mores of the Japanese masses have not been touched. The changes are all superficial with respect to the life of the people and their character.110 "Iyéyasu was careful to qualify the meaning of 'rude.' He said that the Japanese term for a rude fellow signified 'an other-than-expected person'—so that to commit an offense worthy of death it was only necessary to act in an 'unexpected manner,' that is to say, contrary to prescribed etiquette."111 "Even now the only safe rule of conduct in a Japanese settlement is to act in all things according to local custom; for the slightest divergence from rule will be observed with disfavor. Privacy does not exist; nothing can be hidden; everybody's vices or virtues are known to everybody else. Unusual behavior is judged as a departure from the traditional standard of conduct; all oddities are condemned as departures from custom, and tradition and custom still have the force of religious obligations. Indeed, they really are religious and obligatory, not only by reason of their origin, but by reason of their relation also to the public cult, which signifies the worship of the past. The ethics of Shinto were all included in conformity to custom. The traditional rules of the commune—these were the morals of Shinto: to obey them was religion; to disobey them impiety."112 Evidently this is a description of a society in which tradition and current usage exert complete control. It is idle to imagine that the masses of an oriental society of that kind could, in a thousand years, assimilate the mores of the Occident.
96. Case of the Hindoos. Nivedita113 thinks that the Hindoos have adopted foreign culture easily. "One of the most striking features of Hindoo society during the past fifty years has been the readiness of the people to adopt a foreign form of culture, and to compete with those who are native to that culture on equal terms." Monier-Williams tells us, however, that each Hindoo "finds himself cribbed and confined in all his movements, bound and fettered in all he does by minute traditional regulations. He sleeps and wakes, dresses and undresses, sits down and stands up, goes out and comes in, eats and drinks, speaks and is silent, acts and refrains from acting, according to ancient rule."114 As yet, therefore, this people assumes competition with the English without giving up its ancient burdensome social ritual. It accepts the handicap.
97. Reforms of Joseph II. The most remarkable case of reform attempted by authority, and arbitrary in its method, is that of the reforms attempted by Joseph II, emperor of Germany. His kingdoms were suffering from the persistence of old institutions and mores. They needed modernizing. This he knew and, as an absolute monarch, he ordained changes, nearly all of which were either the abolition of abuses or the introduction of real improvements. He put an end to survivals of mediæval clericalism, established freedom of worship, made marriage a civil contract, abolished class privilege, made taxation uniform, and replaced serfdom in Bohemia by the form of villanage which existed in Austria. In Hungary he ordered the use of the German language instead of Latin, as the civil language. Interferences with language act as counter suggestion. Common sense and expediency were in favor of the use of the German language, but the order to use it provoked a great outburst of national enthusiasm which sought demonstration in dress, ceremonies, and old usages. Many of the other changes made by the emperor antagonized vested interests of nobles and ecclesiastics, and he was forced to revoke them. He promulgated orders which affected the mores, and the mental or moral discipline of his subjects. If a man came to enroll himself as a deist a second time, he was to receive twenty-four blows with the rod, not because he was