The hierarchy, in fact, is bound together by the social leaders. At
any one level there is something which might almost be called a social
set of the social leaders. But vertically the actual binding together
of society, in so far as it is bound together at all by social
contact, is accomplished by those exceptional people, frequently
suspect, who like Julius Beaufort and Ellen Olenska in "The Age of
Innocence" move in and out. Thus there come to be established personal
channels from one set to another, through which Tarde's laws of
imitation operate. But for large sections of the population there are
no such channels. For them the patented accounts of society and the
moving pictures of high life have to serve. They may develop a social
hierarchy of their own, almost unnoticed, as have the Negroes and the
"foreign element," but among that assimilated mass which always
considers itself the "nation," there is in spite of the great
separateness of sets, a variety of personal contacts through which a
circulation of standards takes place.
Some of the sets are so placed that they become what Professor Ross
has called "radiant points of conventionality." [Footnote: Ross,
_Social Psychology_, Ch. IX, X, XI.] Thus the social superior is
likely to be imitated by the social inferior, the holder of power is
imitated by subordinates, the more successful by the less successful,
the rich by the poor, the city by the country.
Pages:
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66