Note:
Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago.
Therefore, this work is protected by copyright,
restricting your legal rights to reproduce it.
However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now.
Read more about copyright.
Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - I. The Approach - 1. American Ideals and the American Conscience - 10. The Faltering Judicial Order - 11. Intellectual Defeatism
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
Chapter i. American Ideals 19
Roosevelt exclaimed: ^^Damn the law! I want the canal built,” he spoke
the language of his contemporary business world and of the ordinary
American.
We have to conceive of all the numerous breaches of law, which an
American citizen commits or learns about in the course of ordinary living,
as psychologically a series of shocks which condition him and the entire
society to a low degree of law observance. The American nation has,
further, experienced disappointments in its attempts to legislate social
change, which, with few exceptions, have been badly prepared and ineffi-
ciently carried out. The almost traumatic effects of these historical dis-
appointments have been enhanced by Americans conspicuous success in so
many fields other than legislation. One of the trauma was the Reconstruc-
tion legislation, which attempted to give Negroes civil rights in the South;
another one was the anti-trust legislation pressed by the Western farmers
and enacted to curb the growth of monopolistic finance capitalism; a third
one was the prohibition amendment.
II. Intellectual Defeatism
Against this background, and remembering the puritan tendency in
America to make all sorts of haphazard laws directed at symptoms and
not at causes and without much consideration for social facts and
possibilities,*^ it is understandable that the social scientists, particularly the
sociologists, in America have developed a defeatist attitude towards the
possibility of inducing social change by means of legislation.’^ The political
^^o-nothing” tendency is strong in present-day social science in America.
It is, typically enough, developed as a general theory—^actually as a
scientific translation of the old natural law idea in its negative import. The
social scientists simply reflect the general distrust of politics and legislation
that is widespread among the educated classes of Americans.
Of particular importance to us is that this view is common even among
Negro intellectuals when reflecting on various aspects of the Negro
problem. The failure of Reconstruction had especially severe effects on
them. Younger Negro intellectuals are disposed to express disbelief in the
possibility that much can be won by politics, legislation, and law suits, and
have become inclined to set their hopes on what they conceive of as more
fundamental changes of the economic structure. Sometimes they think in
terms of an economic revolution. But, whether their thoughts take such a
radical direction or stay conservative, a common trait is fatalism in regard
to politics and legislation. Fatalism in regard to res fublka is, however,
• These points are developed at greater length in Appendix 2. We are here referring noi
to the specialists on law and law enforcement but to the general sociologist, economist, or
political scientist when he n^eets legislation as an angle pf his respective problems.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
