Of course, it did not work. The common quality of all these young men is their watchfulness. They sit and watch everything with dull dislike. This gives them that famous ‘pinched’ look. As my tinkling established itself, one of them sauntered across, hands in pockets, chin down, and stood above me. He simply stated, as an order, the name of a disc-hit. Apart from this plain rudeness, a pianist’s biggest bugbear is to be asked for another tune when he is already playing—so I gritted my teeth and tried to close my ears. He nudged my right arm off the notes with his elbow and said simply; mush/ And repeated, louder, his request.”139
I am suggesting that minor behaviors can be employed as a serious invitation to a run-in or show-down. One type of truncated act should be mentioned specifically. It is the use of the style of standing or walking as an open invitation to action to all others present. Thus there is a “delinquency strut” which in effect communicates an authority challenge to adults present, simultaneously conveying not only that the first move has been made but also that it has not been faced up to by those at whom it was and is directed.140 The special swagger of the bullfighter in the ring, Sandunga, is the stylization of the same expression.
Since communications or expressions, not substantive matters, are involved in these games, there is little to keep the symbol from becoming increasingly attenuated in duration and visibility until it has practically disappeared. In consequence, a sequence of moves can be exchanged between two players and a winner established with hardly any visible activity at all, as implied, of course, in G. H. Mead’s analysis of communication.
Earlier it was suggested that an individual can become reputed among his peers as an action seeker—always on the make for any desirable girl he happens upon, or ready to “make something” of the slightest affront, or to see everywhere something that can be bet on. Similarly, an individual may acquire the reputation for always being available to others for a particular type of interpersonal action, ready at all times to provide a definitive test of anyone seeking definition. The Western “gunfighter” is often portrayed as the archetypical example. Well-known pool players find themselves cast in this role. Bet-a-Million Gates apparently attracted bettors in the same way.141 Today the police, being committed (as already suggested) to obtaining immediate deference from all civilians they contact, and to enforce this demand with an immediate willingness to invoke physical sanctions, sometimes find themselves forced into the tester’s role. Male movie stars who are type-cast into tough hero roles may be utilized as testers by those who chance to meet them in public places. Highly regarded jazz musicians who allow the practice of “cutting,” provide another example, at least for those who write about them.
Whether an individual constantly seeks out character contests or is constantly sought out for them, we can anticipate that he won’t last long; anyone so inclined will eventually be removed from competition by the workings of probability. So long as each play involves an appreciable gamble, the persistent chance-taker ought not to plan on a long future. The action role is itself long-lived, but its performers can last only briefly, except on television.
Just as there is specialization of persons, so there is specialization of signs. Particular affronts can be defined as those an honorable individual ought not to tolerate. There are critical points understood by all those involved as the ones past which things will have gone too far; once they are reached, the offended person must disallow excuses, feel things seriously, and take steps to re-establish the normative order if he is to preserve his honor. Among the many words an honorable cowboy can hear, he must, however peaceful his intent, recognize the few that every-one knows are “fighting” ones. Once such specialized function is given to acts, they can be employed by aggressors as an unavoidable call to action. Performed in a measured and pointed way, these acts test the recipient’s honor, that is, his readiness regardless of price to uphold the codes by which he lives. The actual offense is understood by all parties to be incidental, a mere convenience; the chief significance of the act is to serve as a frontal test of the individual’s tacit claim to honor.142 Thus a conventionalized statement, “You lie in your throat,” was the traditional mentita—the act by which an offended party forced the offender to challenge the speaker to a duel.143 Spitting in the other’s face is a less gentlemanly and more common example. In current American race relations, the white person’s use of the word “nigger” is equally provocative. Other acts serve as tests in more circumscribed groups. A teacher in an urban slum school who affirms the school rule against lateness exposes himself to a pupil’s strolling in late and coolly looking him in the eye to underline the challenge.144 These testing acts are favorite moves in contest contests.
Just as a test can be fashioned out of an offensive act performed by one individual against another, so it can be generated by demanding under threat that an individual act in a way he thinks improper. To establish an individual in a subordinate status, an aggressor may coerce him into openly performing an undignified obeisance or service on the assumption that once he allows himself to give-in he can (and he knows he can) be relied upon henceforth to accede to any demand made of him.145 As with the jockey, “nerve” is then thought to be lost, but this time in regard to interpersonal activity and its ceremonial order. And, of course, as long as both parties share these beliefs, the social game will be played accordingly.
In considering action I said that, although there is a relation between action and character, some forms of character arise in opposition to the spirit of action. The same qualification must be made in regard to interpersonal action and character contests. There are situations in which approval is given to an individual’s refusal to be drawn into a fray of honor, and “immaturity” is imputed to challengers. It is always possible for the individual to decline to accept the whole ritual frame of reference and, moreover, put a bold face on it, especially when his peers support this style of response:
But it must be emphasized that, despite prevalent stereotypes, juvenile gangs are not all conflict oriented, and value systems may vary among them as among other human groupings. A “retreatest” gang, which built its value system around the effect of dope, provides a dramatic contrast.
Although criticized and ridiculed repeatedly by other gangs for their cowardice and lack of manhood, the retreatests seldom responded to taunts, and always retreated from combat. They did not worry about their reputations as fighters—they had none—and did not think them important—in fact, they thought the conflict oriented gangs to be “square.” Directly challenged to join other white gangs in repelling Negro “wade-in” demonstrators on a beach in Chicago, they got “high” on pills and unconcernedly played cards during the entire incident.146
Something similar occurs in middle-class bars, where an offended person may feel it beneath him to “seek satis-faction,” at least with the particular opponent of the moment—thus democratizing the chivalric notion that only one’s social equals are worth challenging. The victim will be content to lecture his adversary briefly on how “sick” he must be. In social worlds where honor is highly valued, and men must be prepared to put up their lives to save their faces, fashions of morality may quickly change, and the act of proving such attributes as one’s “masculinity” may decline in significance.147 There has even developed the literary ideal of the “anti-hero” who confidently declines all opportunity to display costly virtues, shows subterranean pride in fleeing from his moral obligations, and takes no chances. Of course, when an individual declines a challenge with coolness or fails to become incensed at an offense he is demonstrating self-command under difficult circumstances, and therefore establishes character of a kind, although not the heroic kind.
In sum, although character contests that can be fought without relevance to physical force are not uncommon, the classic punch-out and slap-leather varieties belong mainly to cinematic places. None the less, the logic of fights and duels is an important feature of our daily social life. The possib
ility, however slight, that matters might degenerate in that direction provides mutually present persons with a background reason to hedge expressions of hostility; they have here a constant guide to what is not going to be allowed to happen. (In fact, joking reference to “stepping outside” can be used as a strategic move to cut back into unseriousness a threatening development in social discourse.) Through a multitude of joint accommodations, the voice of our reason prevails at the cost of hardly any dishonor.
X. Conclusions
The traditional sociological view of man is optimistic. Once you get the beast to desire socially delineated goals under the auspices of “self-interest,” you need only con-vince him to regulate his pursuits in accordance with an elaborate array of ground rules. (Important among these rules, I want to add, are “situational properties,” that is, standards of conduct through whose maintenance he ex-hibits regard for the current situation.) Accordingly, the main trouble the individual can cause is to fail to acquire appropriate wants, or wilfully to fail to abide by the rules in going about satisfying such wants as he has acquired. But obviously other difficulties must be considered. This essay has dealt with one of them.
Whether an individual is concerned with achieving a personal goal or sustaining a regulative norm, he must be in physical command of himself to do so. And there are times when his aliveness to the contingencies in the situation disrupt his dealings with the matters at hand: his capacity to perform ordinary mental and physical tasks is unsettled, and his customary adherence to standard moral principles undermined. The very intelligence that allows him to exert foresight and calculation in the pursuit of his ends, the very qualities that make him something more complex than a simple machine, assure that at times what he intelligently brings to mind will disrupt his capacity to perform and disarray his usual morality.
The ability to maintain self-command under trying cir-cumstances is important, as is therefore the coolness and moral resoluteness needed if this is to be done. If society is to make use of the individual, he must be intelligent enough to appreciate the serious chances he is taking and yet not become disorganized or demoralized by this appreciation. Only then will he bring to moments of society’s activity the stability and continuity they require if social organization is to be maintained. Society supports this capacity by moral payments, imputing strong character to those who show self-command and weak character to those who are easily diverted or overwhelmed. Hence we can understand the paradox that when an immoral deed is accomplished by a well-executed plan that excludes impulsive temptation, the culprit may be half-admired; he can be thought a very bad character even while it is appreciated that he is not a weak one.148
A central opportunity to show strong character is found in fateful situations, and such situations necessarily jeopardize the risk-taker and his resources. (An already-decided fate that is now being settled is useful too, but still more costly.) The actor is therefore likely to avoid this chance-taking and squirm out of occasions he has not avoided. In our society, after all, moments are to be lived through, not lived. Further, fateful activity is often itself disruptive of social routines and cannot be tolerated by organizations in large amounts. (Thus, in Europe, duelling throve under monarchies, but monarchs and their leading generals led in trying to curb the institution, partly because of the duelling toll on key personnel.) In domestic and occupational life, most of these hazards seem to have been safely eliminated.
However, there is some ambivalence about safe and momentless living. Some aspects of character can be easily affirmed, but other aspects can be neither expressed nor earned safely. Careful, prudent persons must therefore forego the opportunity to demonstrate certain prized attributes; after all, devices that render the individual’s moments free from fatefulness also render them free from new information concerning him—free, in short, from significant expression. As a result, the prudent lose connection with some of the values of society, some of the very values that portray the person as he should be.
So some practical gambles may be sought out, or, if not sought out, at least made into something when they occur in the ordinary course of affairs. And enterprises are undertaken that are perceived to be outside the normal round, avoidable if one chose, and full of dramatic risk and opportunity. This is action. The greater the fatefulness, the more serious the action.
Fatefulness brings the individual into a very special re-lationship to time, and serious action brings him there voluntarily. He must arrange to be in a position to let go, and then do so. The circumstances into which he thus thrusts himself must involve matters that are problematic and consequential. And—in the purest case—his dealings with these circumstances must be resolved or paid off during the current span of what is for him a subjectively continuous experience.149 He must expose himself to time, to seconds and minutes ticking off outside his control; he must give himself up to the certain rapid resolution of an uncertain outcome. And he must give himself up to fate in this way when he could avoid it at reasonable cost. He must have “gamble.”
Serious action is a serious ride, and rides of this kind are all but arranged out of everyday life. As suggested, every individual engages in consequential acts, but most of these are not problematic, and when they are (as when career decisions are made that affect one’s life) the determination and settlement of these bets will often come after decades, and by then will be obscured by payoffs from many of his other gambles. Action, on the other hand, brings chance-taking and resolution into the same heated moment of experience; the events of action inundate the momentary now with their implications for the life that follows.
Serious action is a means of obtaining some of the moral benefits of heroic conduct without taking quite all of the chance of loss that opportunity for heroism would ordinarily involve. But serious action itself involves an appreciable price. This the individual can minimize by engaging in commercialized action, wherein the appearance of fatefulness is generated in a controlled fashion in an area of fife calculated to insulate its consequences from the rest of living. The cost of this action may be only a small fee and the necessity of leaving one’s chair, or one’s room, or one’s house.
It is here that society provides still another solution for those who would keep their character up but their costs down: the manufacture and distribution of vicarious experience through the mass media.
When we examine the content of commercialized vicarious experience we find a startling uniformity. Practical gambles, character contests and serious action are de-picted. These may entail make-belief, biography, or a view of someone else’s currently ongoing fateful activity. But always the same dead catalogue of lively displays seems to be presented.150 Everywhere opportunity is provided us to identify with real or Active persons engaging in fatefulness of various kinds, and to participate vicariously in these situations.
Why is fatefulness in all its varieties so popular as an ingredient of living once-removed? As suggested, it provides excitement without cost, if the consumer can identify with the protagonist.151 This process of identification seems facilitated by two factors. First, fateful acts, by definition, involve the actor in use of facilities whose full and effective agent is the actor himself. The single individual is decision maker and executor, the relevant unit of organization. Presumably an individual, real or fictional, is easier to identify with, at least in bourgeois culture, than is a group, a city, a social movement, or a tractor factory. Second, fatefulness involves a play of events that can be initiated and realized in a space and time small enough to be fully witnessed. Unlike such phenomena as the rise of capitalism or World War II, fatefulness is something that can be watched and portrayed in toto, from beginning to end at one sitting; unlike these other events, it is inherently suited to watching and to portraiture.
Consider the following story told by a Negro journalist, driving across the country in order to write a story about what such a trip would be like for a person like him:
I didn’t li
nger long in Indianapolis, nor in Chicago, which was now held fast in the grip of a bitter lake-side winter. Then I was cutting across Ohio, driving dully, the seat belt tight against my waist. In mid-afternoon I saw a patrol car coming up behind me. I checked my speedometer and it read seventy, the limit. I held steady at this speed, expecting the trooper to pass me, but when I glanced around I found him keeping pace with me. Then he signaled me to pull over.
After Kentucky, I had been followed by police or troopers in Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi; I had been pulled over in Illinois and California. Followed, pulled over and made to know that I was a lone black man in a big car, and vulnerable as hell. I had had enough. I snatched off the seat belt and rolled down the window. It didn’t give me room enough, so I practically kicked the door open.
“What’s the matter?” I shouted at the trooper. He didn’t answer as he walked to the car. And then I decided to commit it all—my body, too, if he wanted it—for I would not take any more harassment.
“Let’s see your license.”
“I asked you what the trouble was.” That was not what he wanted. The ritual said that I should hand my license over to him without a word.
“I want to see your license.”
I gave it to him, smelling the odor of a man about to exercise the insolence of office. It was the old game: “You black, me white, and I’m cop besides.”
He fingered the license and then, leaning casually in the window, said, “John, what’s your occupation?”
I laughed. What does occupation have to do with an alleged traffic violation? Was the nature of my work supposed to tell him that I had money enough to pay him off? Was it to let him know that I was the “right kind” of Negro, one with political connections that could make it hot for him? Was I supposed to be jobless and transporting drugs, a corpse, or young girls across the state line? Police and troopers of America, comes a slow day, you can always find a Negro or two wandering through your state. Brighten up that day by making like exactly what you are.
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