The Qualities of the Leader and the Follower : Part 2

The Foundations of Personality
by Abraham Myerson, M.D.

(Page 15 of 21)

Disciplinability is a quality of the follower. He must be willing to sacrifice his freedom of action and choice and turn it over to another. Rules and regulations are necessary for efficiency. In a larger sense, they become laws, and the law-abiding are the disciplined, ready to obey whatever law. Thus the reformers do not come from the law-abiding in spirit; it is the rebel who changes laws. Without the law-abiding, disciplined spirit there would be only anarchy, and though men have obeyed frightful laws and still do, this is better than no social discipline.

A revolution occurs when the discipline, i.e., the rules and regulations and the rulers and regulators, have not kept pace with the new ideas that have permeated society. Men are willing to be governed; nay, they demand it, but there must be at least a rude conformity between the governed and the laws by which they are governed. In other words, discipline of any kind is welcome if the disciplined believe it to be right and just. Men accept punishment for infraction of a law if they believe themselves to be rightfully punished, but rebel against unjust discipline.

There are those who deny either openly or covertly the right of society to regulate their lives or desires. In modern literature this type of rebel is quite favor, ably depicted, although he is usually represented as finally punished in one way or another. Where a man rebels against a specific type of restriction but favors another kind he is a reformer; if however he favors merely the removal of restriction and regulation he is an anarchist and, in my opinion, without real knowledge of life. While the rebel who denies the right of discipline exists, he is rare; the commonest rebel does not deny society's right to regulate but either will not or cannot keep his rebel desires in conformity. Most criminals are of this type, and the inability to conform may arise from many defects in training or original character.

Watch a busy crossing when the traffic policeman is at work, regulating and disciplining. Everything is orderly, smooth-working, and no one complains. Let him step away for a moment; at once there is confusion, danger and the intensely competitive spirit of the drivers comes out, with the skillful and reckless and selfish invading the rights of the less skilled, timid and considerate. The policeman's return is welcomed by the bulk of the drivers. There are very many points of similarity between society and the busy crossing which need no elaboration on my part.

In fact, though we may rebel against discipline and its various social modifications, most of us are quite anxious that others shall be disciplined and raise the hue and cry at once when they rebel. Behind this dislike of the rebel is certainly the feeling that he predicates a superiority for himself by so doing, and this injures our self-esteem. Of course there is and may be a genuine belief that he menaces society and its stability, but those who raise this cry the loudest are usually themselves menaced either in authority and power or in some more direct cashable value.

The qualities which are now to be briefly discussed are in the main great inhibitions. The moral code is in great part and by the majority of men understood as inhibition and prohibition. A man is held to be honest if he does not steal and truthful if he does not lie. In reality this conception is largely correct, and it is as we extend our ideas of stealing and lying that we grow in morality.

Honesty, in relation to property, is the control of the acquisitive impulses and instincts and is wrapped up with the idea of private property. The acquisitive impulses are very strong in most people but not necessarily in all, and we find great variability here as elsewhere in human character. One child desires everything he sees, wants it for his own and does not wish others even to touch it, while another gives away everything he has. The covetous, the indifferent, the generous, the hoarders, the spenders, - these are a few of the types one finds every day in relation to the property and acquisitive feelings.

The spirit of "mine" needs on the whole little encouragement, though the ways to achieve "mine" are part of education. Mainly the spirit of "thine" needs encouragement, and most of our law, as differentiated from religion and ethics, has been built up on settling disputes in this matter. In its primary form, honesty in relation to property is the willingness to conform to society's rulings in this matter, e.g., the belief in ownership as sacred and that to acquire something desired one must (ethical must) go through certain recognized procedures. The whole conception rests on the social instinct's inhibitions of the acquisitive instinct and in the growth and strength of feelings of conscience and duty as previously described. Social heredity and tradition operate very powerfully in the matter of this kind of honesty; to steal, as we see it, from neighboring tribes is ethical for savage races, and even to steal such property as women. Throughout the ages the booty of war was one of the recognized rights of warriors, and even though to-day we have conventions protecting the private property of the enemy, this is one of those rules definitely understood as made to be broken.

Stealing is very common among children, who find their desire for good things too strong to be inhibited. But very quickly the average child learns control in so far as certain types of stealing are concerned. Some, however, never cease to steal, and in my opinion and experience this is true of those who become thieves later on. In very few cases do those who are eventually pickpockets and second-story men first develop their art in adolescence or youth; they have stolen from earliest childhood. Those who steal for the first time in adult life are usually those exposed to great temptations and occupying a position of trust, such as the bank officer or the trusted employee. Here the stress of overexpensive tastes, of some financial burden or the desire to get rich quick through speculation overcome inhibition, especially as it is too often assumed by the speculator that he will be able to return the money.

How widespread petty stealing is will be attested to by the hotel keeper and high-grade restaurant owner, whose yearly losses of linen, silver and bric-a-brac are enormous. The "best" people do not think it really wrong to do this, especially if the things taken have a souvenir value. Farmers whose fruit trees adjoin a public thoroughfare will also state that the average automobilist has quite a different code of morals for apples and pears than for money and gasoline.