The Social Roots of Discrimination by John W. Thibaut

Author:John W. Thibaut [Thibaut, John W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General, Jewish Studies
ISBN: 9781351473811
Google: ttszDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 38367661
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2008-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

4. Group Ideology

In our chapter on the origin of enmity we have discus sed the conceptions of right and wrong which occur in connection with the expression of enmity and without which it is actually impossible that any unfriendly feel ings are directed against a person. The need for the jus tification of enmity is so compulsive that man would vin dicate his very existence, which he must maintain by struggle. And vindication he finds in the consciousness of his own value, for his value is the expression of his im portance for any cause in particular and for the commun ity in general. And even as unfavourable valuation—the notion that he is bad or dangerous, or at any rate useless-stamps a man as the object of permissible enmity, so fav ourable valuation becomes for the individual that would struggle for his existence, a justification for his struggle and for the expression of enmity which it needs involves.

No need to stress that, here as much as, and more than, elsewhere, judgment is the prisoner of self-centered con sciousness, so that man cannot but be convinced of his own value. As long as the will to live is not wholly broken, no experience, be it ever so bitter, is able to uproot this con viction from the primordial depth of the ego. Man's con viction of his own value springs from the preference—un derstandable yet often absurd to objective judgment—for his own self and the chance complex of his qualities. He may often and in many respects desire to become dif ferent from what he happens to be; still he is obsessed by the irresistible inclination to regard his own qualities as in some way excellent and to adorn all that concerns him closely with a special nattering valuation. The poor man would fain be rich; but as long as he is not, he discovers in his poverty a thousand virtues which he denies to opulence. And should opulence become his share, then he will discover that the poverty which before was merely unpleasant is now wretched; while the riches which formerly seemed wicked are now in his eyes ador ned by ennobling dignity. The unsophisticated, little aware of the effect of their words, speak by preference of themselves, of their qualities and conditions, and argue their excellence. But even the less simple-minded often lack the self-control which should have prevented the revelatory expression of self-admiration.

The form in which the consciousness of own value ap pears is, one might say, activated: expressing itself in the exercise of its function as the conception of a task, a mis sion which man has to fulfill within and towards the com munity. And as in its sublimated form consciousness of value grows into a conviction of being chosen, so the idea of a task is occasionally heightened to the conviction of a special destination, of a function exclusively imposed on the individual by virtue of the excellence of his qualities. Usually, though, there is

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