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Show iQur Social Sanity Threatened, Says America's Foremost Psychologist Professor Hugo Muensterberg, of Harvard, Points Out, in His Latest Book, the Modern Tendencies Away From Social Equilibrium, Declares Old American Qualities Have Been Lost and "That Imperial Rome Should Be a Warning to Imperial Manhattan." By Professor Henry L. Weston, Ph. D. jjOFESSOR HUGO MUEXCTER-TpEK-Oi 01 Harvard university, n-ho is commonly regarded aa the leading psychologist of America, 15 just published a new book of es-"Psychology es-"Psychology and Social Sanity ' ' vjbMay, Page & Co.). The distinguished psychologist ap-r.ji ap-r.ji to be of the opinion that America .rapidly wandering away from social v. He sees grave dangers in the versa! craze for sensuous dances, j; :ars t ha t the best elements of New '-.-land Puritanism have been pervert-' pervert-' submerged. He finds that the country is being flooded with , literature and sex plays and that , proposal to give sex instruction to jrjcr people is a grave menace to jf'iy and morality. He even looks ward to a time when disreputable en will sway the public life of -riea, as they formerly did that of iQce. j,. fears that, the ideals that made terk'a great will be lost in the ris-- ris-- ride of Socialism. He is alarmed find that a large part of the pop-mn pop-mn is victimized by what he calls :e intellectual underworld' eom-I eom-I of seers, mind readers and I i.-bs, who prey on the superstitions i the weak minded. Tu fart, the -prir-in nation must appear to the rani psychologist. at( times like a . lunatic' asylum. Tbe new dances are the social phe-tena phe-tena that the professor evidently re-vis re-vis as most disconcerting, not to exciting. Here it must be re-rxed re-rxed that the tango and the maxixe riire a Dew interest when described .n eminent a scholar. Can we deny," asks Professor rterberg. -'that this recent craze ..h. like a dancing mania, has ,;rlpd o,-er the country, is a .signifi-,i .signifi-,i expression of deep cultural dc"s which havj come to America? r ten ccars ago such a dancing r would have been impossible. Peo-' Peo-' .hm'cd, but they did not take it inly. It was set off from life I not allowed to penetrate it. It had still essentially the role which belonged be-longed to it in a puritanic., hard-working society. Hut the last decade has rapidly rap-idly swept away that . en- rJugland ten,, per, which was so averse to the, sensuous sen-suous enjoyment of lite, and which lon.r kept an invisible control over the spinT of the whole nation. Svmptoms of the change abound; how it came about is another question. ' Certainly the increase and the wide distribution of wealth with its comforts and luxuries were responsible, as well as tlie practical completion of the pioneer pi-oneer days of the people, the rich blossoming blos-soming ot science and art, and, above a I,, tne tremendous influx of warmblooded, warm-blooded, sensual peoples who came in millions from southern and eastern Europe, Eu-rope, and who altered the tendencies of the cool-blooded Teutonic races in the land. "They have changed the old American Ameri-can Sunday, and thev have revolutionized revolution-ized the inner life, thev have brought the ooeras to every large citv, and the kinemat.ograph to everv village, and have at last, played the 'music to a nation-wide dance. Vet the problem which faces even-one is not how this dancing craze arose, but rather where it may lead; how far it is healthy and how- far unsound; how far it is healthy to yield to it or further it, and how far we ought to resist. To answer this question it is not, enough to watch the outside spectacle, but we must inquire into the mental motives and mental consequences. Exactly this is our true problem. "Let us first examine the psychological psycholog-ical debit account. No one can doubt that true dangers are near wherever the dancing habit is prominent. The dance is a bodily movement, which aims at. no practical purpose and is thus not bound by outer necessities. It is simply self-expression, and this gives to the dancing impulse the liberty which easiW becomes licentiousness. Two mental conditions help in that direction; di-rection; the mere movement as such produces increased excitement, and the excitement reinforces the movement, and so the dance has in itself the tendency ten-dency to become quicker and wilder and more and more unrestrained. When gay Vienna began its waltzing craze in the last century, it waltzed to the charmin- melodies of Lannor in a j rhythm which did not demand more than about Rio movements iu a min-j min-j me; but soon came dohann Strauss, the father, and the average waltzing rhythm was 2M) a uiiuute, and finatly the king of waltz. Johann Strauss, the younger, and ienua danced at the rhythm of 300 movements. "But another mental effect is Etin more significant than the impulse to increase raii'lity. The uniformity of the movements," and especially ot" the revolving movement, produces' a state of half dizziness and halt' numbness with ecstatic elements. We know the almost hypnotic state of the whirling dervishes and the raptures in the savage sav-age war dances; all this in milder form is involved in every passionate dance. But nothing is more characteristic of such half-hvpnotic states than that the individual loses control of his will. He behaves like a drunkeu man who be-I be-I comes the slave of his excitement and of every suggestion from without. No doubt many seek the dancing excitement excite-ment as a kind of substitute for the alcoholic al-coholic exaltation. - "That social injury must be feared if the social community indulges in such habits of undisciplined, passionate expression weeds no explaining. The mind is a unit; it cannot be without self-control in one department, and under un-der the desirable selt-discipline of the will in another. A period in which the mad rush of dancing stirs social life must be unfavorable to the development of thorough training and earnest endeavor. en-deavor. The fate of imperial Rome ought to he the eternal warning to imperial im-perial Manhattan. Italy, like America, Amer-ica, took its art and science from over the sea, but gave to them abundant wealth. Instead of true art, it cultivated culti-vated the virtuosi, and in Rome, which paid throe thousand dancers, the dance was its glory until it began inglorious!-to inglorious!-to sink. "Not without inner' relation to the inebriety, and yet distinctly different, is the erotic character of ' the dance. Lqvemaking is the most, centra, underlying under-lying motive of all the mimic dances all over the globe.' Among many primitive primi-tive peoples the dance is a real pantomimic panto-mimic presentation of the whole story from the first tender awaking of a sweet desire through the warmer and warmer courtship to the raptures of sensual sen-sual delight. Civilized society has more or less covered the naked passion, but from the graceful play of the minuet to the graceiess movements of the turkey tur-key trot the sensual, not to say the sexual, sex-ual, element can easily be recognized by the sociologist. "Here again cause and effect, move in a circle. Love excitement expresses express-es itself in the dance, and the dance heightens the love excitement. This erotic appeal to the senses is the chief reason why the church has generally taken a hostile attitude. For a long while the dance was denounced as irreligious ir-religious and sinful on account of Salome Sa-lome 's blasphemous dancing. Certainly Certain-ly the rigid guardians of morality, al- 1 , v Professor Huso Muensterbere. ways look askance on the contact of the sexes in the ballroom." The professor shows a profound knowledge of the ' dance and throws much new light upon the causes of the sensual dangers that are associated with it. "The dance has still another psvcho-logical psvcho-logical effect, ' ' he continues, " which must not be disregarded from a social point of view. It awakes to an unusual degree the impulse to imitation. The seeing of rhythmic movements starts similar motor impulses in the mind of ttie onlooker. It is well known that from the eleventh to the sixteenth century cen-tury Europe suffered from dancing epidemics. epi-demics. They started from pathological cases of St. Vitus' dance and released in the excitable crowds cramplike impulses im-pulses to imitative movements. But we hear the same story of instinctive imitations on occasions of less tragic character. It is reported that in the eighteenth century papal Rome was indignant in-dignant over the passionate Spanish fandango. ' "It was decided solemnly to put this wild dance under the ban The lights of the church were assembled for the formal judgment when it was proposed to call a pair ot: Spanish dancers in order or-der that every one of the priests might form his own idea of the unholy dance. But history tells that the effect was an unexpected one. After a short time of fa n da n go demonstration the high clerics cler-ics began involuntarily to imitate the movements, and the more passionately the Spaniards indulged in their native whirl, the more the whole court was transformed into one great dancing party. Even the Italian tarantella probably began as a disease with nervous nerv-ous dancing movements, and then i spread over the land through mere imi-j imi-j tation which led to an ecstatic turning I around aud around. Whoever studies i the adventures of American dancing during the last season from New York ; to San Francisco must be impressed by this contagious character of our danc-: danc-: ing habits. But this means that the 1 movement carries in itself the energy to spread farther ::nd tarther, ami to rili i the uaiiy lite w: ; '. in .'raised lonj;i j ror tin ragtime. We are alicaily I t o m e i i To t h c c. nv.ro at t ; : e a t i e v n u u ; t j t v a ; V. n '.v 1 o i g wili i t t n k 1 in'turo w , - j are r ),! r.ie'.:e-: by t t:e uamv i.; ii:c j break i col I iv .' ' ' ! The prnfsvi points out the in'ero-d- intf iurr Tint tee o eivmphu.-is on li-me- J ha iisus i i i-h:ira L-en y.ed a pormd ot p'-'Jiii'-al rc;i-; t.,i in.iii rY;vnce to public life, o: o:al sragnai ;ou and j carelessness. Who;: he voieamies wore i rumbling the inasrs were always daiu- I irjQ. Ai all times when tyrauis wanted ' : to divert The attention ot" the imowo , they gave the dancer to their people. A ! nation which dances cannot think, but' lives from hour to hour. Tim :cs po- j litieal maturity the more ha ppim"- docs a national commuuiry show m its dancing pleasures. The Spaniards and The Polish, the Hungarians and the Bohemians Bo-hemians have always been great dancers danc-ers the gypsies dance." The professor declares himself by no means averse to all dancing, but his essay is plainly more devoted t o the dangers of the present popular fnim of it than to the benefits to be derived from rational and modest indulgence. In his interesting essay on "Sex Education'' Edu-cation'' Professor Muensterbere; makes a bitter attack on the policy or giving instruction in certain physiological facts To adolescent boys and girls. He asserts that the mystery with" which such subjects were formerly clothed was the best protection of the modesty and innocence of The young, and That such instruction as is given must arouse a desire to sin without suffering the penalty. The professor admits that the policy' of instruction has proceeded far and calls on society to reverse it. Jle calls attention to some remarkable evidences evi-dences of social demoralization he has witnessed. Again and again he declares that sex matters are being overemphasized in this country, perhaps the most novel passage in this essay is that iu which he suggests that as a result of the erotic state of the public mind women of bad character may exercise dominating influence in-fluence in American affairs, as they did at the old French court nnd in other historic periods. He makes this start-line start-line suggestion in the following: words: 'Mn this vicious circle of craving for sensual life and talking about sexual problems the erotic transformation of the whole social behavior is usually a rapid one. The Rococo age reached many subtleties, which we do not dream of as vet, but to which the conspiracy aeains't silence may boldly push us. Read the memoirs of Casanova, the Ttalian of the eighteenth century, whose biographv gives a vivid picture of a time in which certainlv no one was silent si-lent ou sexual affairs, and in which life was essentially a chain of gallant adventures. ad-ventures. ' . "In the select Ameican circles it is alreadv noticeable that the favorites of rich men get a certain social acknowledgement. acknowl-edgement. The great masses have not reached this stage at present, which is, of course, erv familiar in ('ranee. But if we proreou, in That rni'id rhythm wuh l.i.'h v.o have changed in the last ii 11 ve::i, i.-n v,-;;r hovce we may have s;;bsriT :'t ''-i ; m lb'tMn-e of misTresses :v rhc i'. :!iiOTi(-e oi Tau'manv ft f"-s, :v., ' wet: t v,'iirs ho m -1 a Madame. I lY.ivpadoin-' ii;::v he d" elii ii not tar 1 T'rnm the "W'Tiri1 house and on Trolling 'the 'a to of the nat'i.n wi;h her small ha? d. n ;o Iid tor i"f decades when i.ouis XV w:ts king. History has saf-ih'ioutiv saf-ih'ioutiv shown that these are the loiii ,a! consovjui'iiro of the seusuali.anon of a rieh peoplr. who- mi nil is filled with exnal problems. Are we to wait. too. until a croat revolution or a groat war snakes the nation to its depths and hammers new ideas of moral tv into its j confieiii'o .' ' This is the effect the policv of discussing dis-cussing matters that wore formerly hidden from the yonm; is now producing, produc-ing, in the opinion of Troiessor Muensterberg: 'It moans to till the atmosphere in which the growing adolor-cont moves with sultrv ideas. It mean- to stir up the sexual' desires and to teach children how to indulge in them without immediate imme-diate punishment, dust ns in a community com-munity of craft and corruption the individual in-dividual soon loses the finer feeling tor honestv and crime flourishes simply because be-cause eve'vone knows thar nobody expects ex-pects anything hotter, so in a community com-munity in which sexual problems are the lesson of the vouth and the dinner talk of the adult the feeling of respect for man's deepest emotions fades away. Man and woman lo.e the instinctive Ishvness in touching on this sacred ground, and as rhe organic desires push and push Toward it the vouth soon discovers dis-covers that the barriers to the forbidden forbid-den ground are removed aud that i" their (dace stands simple signal with a suggesiive word of warning against some easily avoided traps.' ' i The wisest policy, in Professor Muensterberg 's opinion, will be to strengthen the instinctive emotion of mvsTerious respect, which makes the voung mind shrink from brutal intrusion intru-sion into the most sacred relationships of life. Among many other interesting observations obser-vations on socialism, .Professor Muensterberg Muen-sterberg makes this forecast: "The country has entered into a career of progressive experiments; the ; traditional respect for the old constitutional constitu-tional svstem of checks and balances to ; the mere will of the crowd has been un-' dermined. The real legislative reign ot the masses has just begun, and it would seem onlv natural that such an entire- j Iv new movement should be pushed for- ' ward bv its own momentum. If t genius of America, which was conservative, conserva-tive, turns radical. The political machinery ma-chinery here would bo more fit Than that of any other land to allow the enforcement en-forcement of socialism. This will not come todav or Tomorrow, but that so cialism -mav suddenly be with us the day after tomorrow is the possibility i with which the neutral observer must i count. ' 1 |
