it needs but to follow the broad, well-blazed trail of spreading culture. Rarely does it lead culture even in its assaults upon the wilder folk. Indeed it may be doubted if it greatly facilitates diffusion, except as it accelerates colonization." 13

John Oakesmith in his Race and Nationality boldly asserts that: "Institutions and characteristics are not modified by the immission of new blood into the bodies of the people who possess them, but by the admission of new influences which operate from outside upon the minds and bodies of the people." "The progress of civilization is dependent upon the intermingling of different communal traditions." 15

CHAPTER 56

SOCIOLOGICAL ASPECTS (CONT.)

Dependence of the Value of Amalgamation upon the Culture Level of the Races Forming the Amalgam-The Effect of Contact of Races on Different Levels and on the Same Level of Culture-Beneficial Effects of Amalgamation of Races on High Levels of Culture and on Nearly the Same Levels

IF

F racial intermixture has not been an essential factor in the progress of culture has it been a negligible factor? There can be no denying that racial intermixture has a reciprocal effect upon the races forming the amalgam, but what that effect is must depend upon the characteristics and the culture level of each race concerned.

Leaving entirely aside the debatable question of the inherent superiority or inferiority of races, we can arrive at the consequences of racial intermixture by studying the interaction of racial contact on different levels of culture, since no two races have the same culture. I think it is quite possible to formulate general principles explaining the effects of culture contact on different levels; and on such a basis we can decide in any given case whether an amalgamation is beneficial or injurious. While not pretending to have discovered these general principles, I will venture to offer some tentative generalizations and to suggest how they might be supported by historical data.

First, suppose we consider the effect of contact in the same territory of two races on low levels of culture.

Since neither race brings to the other any new elements of culture, there would be no stimulus to cultural advance, and, since aggregations of people on low levels of culture have imperfect social organizations, the tendency would be toward group conflicts, community isolation and economic and social instability, preventing the development of common tradition, and ending in social stagnation. An irregular and undeveloped system of communication would limit personal contact to narrow circles, and render impossible the first essential to cultural advance, to wit: a culture disseminated over a wide area.

Instances of such results of culture contact on low levels are found

abundantly in India, in Central Africa and the Sudan, in North America among the Indians, in Asia among the pastoral nomads, and in Europe among the primitive races of the great northern plain.

In the case of a high culture predominating over a low culture in the same territory, the result is a temporary decline of culture of the race on the higher level, followed by renascence, but a decline of culture of the race of the lower level without renascence.

Because of the injurious consequences of the assimilation of such opposite cultures, it is the natural tendency of the people so juxtaposed to protect themselves by segregation and the development of a caste system.

The reasons for the injurious consequences to the race on the higher level are as follows:

(1) It assimilates the worst elements of the lower culture through contact of the degenerate representatives of both groups, with the better elements remaining apart.

(2) The segregation of races limits the area of common culture to racial boundaries, and sets up dual standards and ideals, while the defenseless position of the race of lower culture tempts the one of higher culture to compromise its standards in the interest of exploitation.

(3) The dominance which the race of higher culture exercises over the one of lower culture develops in the former a prideful, haughty, and often bullying spirit, narrows its sympathies, imprisons its spiritual life, and lulls to sleep its impulse to create.

The recovery from the downward tendency is always slow, and comes only through suffering and heroic sacrifices in the effort to raise the culture level of the whole population. But the renascence must always proceed under handicaps as long as the two cultures remain unassimilated.

The reasons for the decline of the race on the lower level are: (1) A too sudden breaking down of the standards and folkways, resulting from a sense of race inferiority.

(2) The eagerness to imitate the people of high culture, resulting in the assimilation of their vices.

(3) The feeling of despair or hopelessness in view of the wide distance between the two cultures, resulting in the extinction of the impulse to create.

Instances of the results of such contact are found in Africa and Australia, where the whites have dominated over the blacks; in America, where the whites have dominated over the Indians; in India, where

the Aryans have dominated over the Dravidians; and in Japan, where the yellow race has dominated over the white Ainu.

Commenting on the injurious effects of the contact of civilized people upon backward people, the German economist, Bücher, says: "If, since their acquaintance with European civilization, so many primitive peoples have retrograded and some even become extinct, the cause lies, according to the view of those best acquainted with the matter, chiefly in the disturbing influence which our industrial methods and technique have exerted upon them. We carried into their childlike existence the nervous unrest of our commercial life, the hurried hunt for gain, our destructive pleasures, our religious wrangles and animosities. . . . Under these conditions has he (the primitive man) gone to ruin, just as the plant that thrives in the shade withers away when exposed to the glare of the noon-day sun."1

If the contact of races on such disparate levels of culture has the consequences above outlined, it seems probable that like consequences would follow from the presence of widely opposite cultures which have arisen among people of the same race and nation.

For example, let us turn to the contact of cultures in any of our so-called highly civilized nations. Here do we not find evidence of a strangling of culture on both the higher and lower levels? Where the cultural differences are great, they imply great inequality in opportunity and in the distribution of wealth. The classes at the social top are lulled to sleep by the security of their position and lose the incentive to create, while those at the bottom are discouraged because of the great distance which separates them from the top. The classes at the bottom tend toward a caste status and the work they have to do, becoming more automatic by machinery and system, offers little opportunity for incentive or for the expression of the impulses of pugnacity, curiosity, self-assertion, and acquisition which are essential to human efficiency and contentment. The repression of these impulses constrain the masses on the lower economic level to find an outlet in vice, crime, and classwarfare. And finally the flames of aspiration are quenched.

Free intermingling takes place only among the degenerate representatives of both levels of culture. The feeble-minded, ignorant, and economically weak classes on the lower level offer irresistible temptations to exploitation to the egoistic, predatory, and morally perverted individuals on the higher level. Any class which is rendered secure by

1Industrial Evolution, p. 82. For fuller discussion of this kind of contact see Dowd, The Negro Races, Vol. 1, Ch. XXXIX.

great fortunes is always hampered in the development or maintenance of high standards, and can hardly escape the prideful and exclusive spirit which sets up barriers to contact and narrows sympathy and outlook.

The demoralizing effect of widely contrasting groups in the same political boundary is shown glaringly in the fine arts, where the preponderating demands of the opulent class lower the standards, subordinating substance to form, and moral essence to the pleasure of the

senses.

The class of people of low economic status are driven in self-defense to develop a strong class spirit which, as the class spirit of the more favored people, makes also for narrowness of sympathy and outlook.

Finally, the barriers between the higher and lower classes, the conflicting interests and the alienation of sympathy, prevent the development of a common tradition and idealism which are indispensable to cultural progress.

On the other hand, in a society where opportunities are open there can never be great contrasts in the culture levels of the population, the intermingling will be free and assimilation rapid, with everybody receiving stimulus to express whatever genius he may possess.

Therefore, we seem to find that the general principle governing the contact of races on different levels of culture applies also to the contact of different classes of people within the same race and nation, this general principle being that contact within the same territory of distantly related cultures is detrimental to progress, while the contact of nearly related cultures is stimulating to progress.

The renascence of a people representing extremes of culture is only possible through a consciousness of the evil consequences, and a heroic effort to change the conditions. The great difficulty is that such a people may not have the intelligence to associate their suffering with its causes. A renascence of both classes would be possible only in case they were composed of the same race or of races closely akin, affording opportunities for free social intermingling, and intermarriage.

If it be said that all civilizations have been characterized by contact of opposing cultures in the form of classes and castes, and that such contact has been, in some instances at least, consistent with continuous ascent in culture, I admit the fact, but would contend that instances of continuous ascent have been among nations where the people forming the classes and castes have been of the same race, and