The Adoration of Groups

I

THE American adoration of groups is in an advanced stage. It has both a theory and a practice, a theology and a ritual. It is only in a group that we feel ourselves whole; we therefore participate in as many groups as possible and have given enthusiastic attention to the theories as to how groups should be run.

Since the war the ‘ technique of group discussion’ has received an extraordinary amount of attention. Group discussion has been taken up in education as an alternative to the lecture system, as a cure for the lethargy which accompanies fifty inevitable minutes of monologue. It has been brought particularly to the fore by the recent movement in workers’ education, which is faced with the problem of education for adults. It has definitely been adopted as the technique of conference by such nation-wide bodies as the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A., as well as by a considerable number of economic organizations which hold regular meetings. It thus is strongly entrenched in the institutional life of the country.

The method has two aims. The first is to avoid the ‘being told from above’ character of the old type of lecture or conference address, partly because it is undemocratic, partly because it is uninfluentlal. The second is to bring the individual out of himself, to make him feel that he has ‘something to contribute.’

The latter emphasis is illuminating with regard to the American mind. The first noticeable result of group discussion by people with an average background is the sense of adventure which they experience at uttering aloud anything which approaches a general idea, and the increased freedom which they feel as the strangeness wears off and joining in the discussion of the group becomes habitual and normal. These sensations bear witness to the subconscious limitations imposed by a life which is as external in its focus and as activist in its manner as ours ordinarily is. To the extent to which the method produces an increase of freedom, to the extent to which actual verbal formation of an idea clarifies the situation of the speaker, it has undoubtedly accomplished much.

That accomplishment, however, applies only to the very act of saying something. One must, alas, consider what is said. At that point appear the weaknesses of the egalitarian assumptions for which the method stands. In spite of the group discussionists’ efforts always to ‘start from scratch,’ there is practically no subject on which all the members of a group are equally informed, or have done an equal amount of thinking. Even when each member of the group contributes his share, therefore, it is inevitable that the shares contributed should be unequal. Yet, because the final upshot of the discussion is a joint affair, there is a very great tendency on the part of the weaker members of the group to assume an understanding of the problem in hand, and an extent of collaboration in its solution, out of all proportion to the actual facts of their ability. The method therefore lends itself easily to a flattering corroboration of democracy’s fundamental mistrust of the value of solitary thinking and meditation, and of the difficulties which it involves. It is so much pleasanter to do our thinking all together in a cheerful group, where a good time can be had by all.

And if that is a possible effect of the method on the weaker members of the group, what about the stronger? Does it not afford them a possibility of imposing their view by a form of authoritarianism far more subtile than the old out-and-out statement? What, especially, does the practice of this method do to the leader? The leader’s function is said to consist in assuring fair play and in drawing out budding ideas by means of questions. It seems inevitable that, consciously or unconsciously, he has an enormous share in moulding the final form of the discussion. The amount of study spent these last years on the technique of questioning has given him a tool of great finesse. And, since the members of the group are convinced out of their own mouths, the finally accepted conclusion becomes ten times more effective than if the leader had offered it under the old guise of a lecture; the group members feel themselves personally involved. After a certain amount of practice it is not difficult to ‘plan a discussion’ so as to have it come out all right — though the process sounds strangely like the organization of spontaneity.

Now neither of these unfortunate results would be possible on a large scale if it were not for a certain assumption that lies behind the whole group-discussion method. The method has been called ‘ a coöperative technique of conflict.’ It aims to integrate conflicting positions. By integration it does not mean compromise; it means the bringing together of opposing parties on a higher plane where both shall be in accord without either of them feeling that he has sacrificed an intrinsic part of his point of view. The belief in the possibility of such a result is a clear-cut evidence of American pantheism. The group-discussion school assumes that, an idea consists of a fact plus an emotion. By establishing agreement as to the fact, and by allowing the emotion to spend itself through being expressed by free discussion in a group, it is possible to arrive at a method of treating the fact that is acceptable to all. That is the programme.

The freedom achieved through breaking up the kind of idée fixe for which the school’s assumption is correct is indeed great. But the assumption is applied to all sorts of conflicts — or, rather, it recognizes but one kind of conflict. The school believes in the possibility of a pragmatic solution of all differences; it sees the problem of difference only as a problem of method. Its pantheism does not admit a problem of good and evil; its externality is unable to understand a personal point of view based on deliberately made distinctions. It ignores the possibility of a desire to achieve a certain pattern of life, and an attempt to select among present phenomena in accordance with that pattern. An ‘integration’ with an opposing or different pattern in such a case means a complete loss of the form which is its guiding principle.

The group discussionists have not been aware of the existence of such personal positions. If they were, if they believed in intrinsic and enduring differences between the individuals of which their groups are composed, deliberate differences which form part of the individual’s personal life, the results of their discussions could be neither a democratic vitiation of the thought of their best members nor an authoritarian imposition on the ideas of their weaker constituents. The individual, while being part of the group, would nevertheless be a whole in himself; his mental life would not only be separate, but distinguishable in character from that of the group — it would have the resilience of its own fibre.

But a recognition of such possibilities would be destructive of the very core of the group diseussionists’ ideas; it would admit a pluralistic universe inca]>able from its very nature of being utterly resolved —or, rather, utterly integrated — into the unity which they find satisfying and which they ardently desire. It would be a troubling factor in the mysticism of their cult.

For it is a cult. It is a cult which has even invented a ritualistic (and highly hyphenated) language of its own, employed by all good ‘group-individuals’ in those ‘problem-finding discussions’ where they use ‘the situation-approach’ to ‘break up the statement-wholes into the idea-factors that lie shut up within them.’ The mystical feeling of holiness resulting from unity achieved by this means is not only reflected by the I-am-now-aboutto-become-more-than-myself mood with which its adepts enter such meetings; it is consciously recognized by one of the leaders of the school’s theorists, Mr. H. S. Elliott. In Iris most recent book, The Process of Group Thinking, under a section headed ‘Group Thinking As Worship,’ one reads: —

Something happens which is in the highest sense dynamic when a group in fellowship and in confidence lays hold of the previously unreleased resources within itself. At such a time there comes insight as to what to do, and strength and ability to carry out the purposes, which represent more than the mathematical total of the resources of the members of the group when taken separately. Such release of spiritual power is a manifestation of the divine resources all around us which are at the command of all those who in a group process meet the conditions of spiritual creativity.

Ought not such a service to end with the formula, ‘And now unto God the Method, God the Group, and God the Integration, be all honor and glory ’ ?

II

Such theory is paralleled by a practice equally devoted if less conscious. We join all the groups that we can, because it is in groups that we find out what we are, and we want to live to the limit of our abundant energy. The group takes us and transforms us, and we view the transformation with satisfaction. This process can be seen on a small but graphic scale in our colleges. Imitation is of course a feature of any college anywhere — it is part of the essential conservatism of youth and also part of the learning process; what makes its American form unique is that there is only one standard to be imitated, only one way of being correct. In the English universities, for instance, the possibilities, mental as well as sartorial, range from the hearty through the honors man to the æsthete. With us, the lack of any choice among types canalizes social pressure into one single channel, and thereby enormously increases its force. The new arrival becomes either all right or all wrong; there is no possibility of his being different without being wrong. It is to the group that he goes to find out what he is, and the group says, ‘We recognize one single type. Be that, or go under.’

Among the people whom we know there are no differences. We have little experience of liking people with whom we disagree on matters more fundamental than the relative merits of a La Salle and a Chrysler, or even of recognizing them as valuable and stimulating members of our community. The person and his opinion are one to us; if we disagree with the opinion we have no tolerance for the man. We are incapable of reasoned discussion in general subjects; when someone challenges our point of view we feel attacked all over, as though if the challenger made good his claim our entire personal validity would be annihilated. That is why in America discussion so often becomes charged with all the emotions which accompany a struggle for survival.

There is a curious paradox in this defensive attitude. Owing to the fact, that it is from our group that we obtain our mental standards, the point of view which we defend as a condition of personal survival is not really our own point of view. And we defend it all the more violently because it is not our own. What we receive from the group is a text, which loses its recognizable character if it is not maintained wholly intact and in its original form. Since the group standard is essentially external to us, we are not able to affirm, modulate, or reject various parts of it according to whether or not they appear living and true in live light of our personal experience. The fact that our social milieu provides no education in the development and exercise of personal criteria makes them weak and faltering when occasionally we do try to use them as supports, and consequently drives us back to the standardized props recommended by the social groups to which vve belong.

The predominance of groups in our society and the absence from it of all variety explain why our personal life is such a negligible affair. The activism necessitated by the exigencies of the pioneeer days has become a tradition and a pride, and it has not only condemned idleness, but confused idleness with leisure. The mood of the community is set against the conditions of an inner development, of the attainment of a tempered personality. Intangibles such as the fruits of contemplation, or the insight that comes from stepping aside from time to time to try to catch a glimpse of the direction of our dynamic world, are difficult to justify to a community which is looking for concrete results. The social pressure is dead against them. Consequently we have the most curious spectacle of all: the division of leisure itself into activities — other and different activities than those of the workday, but activities, none the less. Leisure, in truth, is with us at bottom not a contrast to work. The psychology of the world of production is so strong that it has brought about the organization of even the personal life.

The group’s unquestionable rightness becomes the individual’s morality. Here lies perhaps the greatest single danger in America’s future. As yet it is only latent. The most popular of the existing groups arc the recently established clubs for more and better business, for a bigger and better community; they are bent upon the creation of good will, and consequently wish to alienate no one. There are also the older fellowships of one sort or another, founded upon the idea of brotherhood. And lastly there are the societies for the attainment of a specific end, of which the various ‘anti’ societies are the type. At present the last of these groups, with the Anti-Saloon League as its archetype, is causing a good deal of amusement. The simplification of good and evil which members of such organizations assume in measuring all men according to whether they do or do not agree with the Anti-Blank League’s principle, and their efforts to extend the application of that principle by whatever means are at hand, are funny when watched from a distance. Yet it is worth questioning whether the methods of these societies are not the very methods which larger and more effective groups will in the future be increasingly ready to employ.

The fact that the individual does not feel his sense of values personally, but depends for it on his group, means that the establishment by that body of an external credo is extremely easy. And the group is so conscious of the dependence on it of its members, and so jealous of its control of them, that any attempt of a person within the group to temper its formulæ is met with ‘Who are you to be suggesting this?’ And behind the phrase the thought, ‘What outside influence has been after you, putting that into your head?' Once the credo is established, all those who accede to it are ‘our kind’; they are ‘the boys.’ That is the mood of the period of expansion; all of the members’ energy is absorbed in welcoming new boys. But there is a limit to that period. The next step is to further the ‘activities programme’ of the organization. Here the question of legitimate methods raises itself. There is a strong tendency to throw it aside as nonexistent. A morality for our group has been not only decided upon, but proclaimed, in the official credo. Since all the boys agree that that is what we want, is it very relevant how we get it? For, after all, those who don’t want what we want can’t be regular boys; if they were they would believe in our credo, too. And since their beliefs are not our beliefs and therefore all right, they are obviously all wrong, — here is the point of distinction which may widen into the line of future social cleavage, — and is it not our moral duty to treat them accordingly? And what is accordingly? From the frontier on, we have been a people with no particular repugnance to the use of force.

This seems like a far cry from the mood of a country which has SMILE signs on every office desk. The picture of a large and uniform mass of men, recognizing no limits except the limits of its land, worshiping a god of that land’s productivity, enforcing its customs with tribal severity, and purging itself of those who practise different rites with the joyful hate of a holy war, is not easily recognizable as These United States. It is in fact a ridiculous caricature. And yet . . .

The time is coming when the superproductivity of the land will find equilibrium, when the cry of ‘more and better ’ will be met by a law of diminishing returns. We do not believe this. Neither did the Englishman of 1840, when the possibilities of the Kingdom of Coal and Iron were at dawn; now, less than a hundred years later, he is realizing that it is afternoon. When that, time comes to us it will no longer be a case of everyone having a share in an increasing total. Once the total is constant, the struggle for shares will be sharpened. The boys will gather more closely together; the distinction between ‘our kind’ and ‘not our sort’ will be more pronounced, and will be invoked oftener.

We have already seen a little of groups arming for group defense. The definition of what we mean by ‘our kind’ began in a mild way in the early ‘Americanization’ programmes. Those were to help the immigrant to become ‘one of ours.’ Now we have reached the stage where we think we have had enough immigrants, and the tone changes. We have begun to define ‘Americanism’ with a view to enforcing the acceptance of certain standards. The action of the Attorney-General and of the local courts during the anti-Red period of 1920, of which the Sacco-Vanzetti case was only the most noteworthy example, applied these standards to political ideas. The organization of the Open Shop Drive to enforce the antiunion ‘American’ plan in our factories took the standards on to the industrial field. The Anti-Saloon League is attempting to put into practice a legal victory in the social sphere. And all of these are only specific manifestations of a much more fundamental cleavage — the cleavage between the Anglo-Saxon stock of the First Immigration and the later comers who alone are known as immigrants. In the Hoover-Smith election, the former stock won a decisive victory on the issue of group dominance, an issue which will continue increasingly to be raised in American politics.

And if American life cannot learn to accept the existence of differences, if the controlling group elects to fight it out on a straight issue of dominance, the tribal caricature will become a likeness. The question of an order, our order, will gradually become a question of order pure and simple, with force used to maintain it. Even now, American industry cannot be allowed to stop; if the weight of its superstructure came down, fire would spring from the ruins. We have moved from the farm to the city, and we intend that city life shall continue. The fear which keeps a million people out of the subway the day after there has been an accident due to a slipped rail is only a faint shadow of the hate which would break against any group that could with some degree of truth be accused of deliberately interrupting means of transport. The suburban community is the dominant American group. It is the group which conforms most willingly and most closely to the group standards, and feels itself emptiest apart from them. It is the group which is therefore willing to stake most on the continued functioning of things as they are, to put order above all — the group from which the Fascisti of the future will be drawn, if there are Fascist!.

If there are Fascisti! Surely the commuters on the 5.10 train do not look very much like intent and determined imperialists of production. The idea is ridiculous. Put the person of a Gluyas Williams cartoon into a black shirt and he is funnier than ever. Put him into a white sheet, however, and he is at least recognizable as a factor in American life; muster him as a Minute Man of America and he even gains a certain prestige.

One thing is certain. If there are not to be Fascist! when the check in production produces a check on the facile type of ‘Service’ good humor, it will be because an element of tolerance has entered into American life and become an integral part of it. The present system does not permit variety, let alone accepting it as a communal good. What are the sources of this weakness in our social outlook? How could it be overcome? If an understanding of and a respect for differences are to become part of our make-up, both a personal change and an institutional change will have to take place. We shall have to acquire an ability, both personal and institutional, to recognize not only the existence of something, but also the existence of something else; to differentiate the All into parts with forms of their own.

It means establishing conditions in which variety can flourish, and believing in variety even when it takes the form of opposition.