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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - I. The Approach - 3. Facets of the Negro Problem - 7. The Theory of the Vicious Circle
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76 An American Dilemma
forces happen to balance each other. Such a static ^^accommodation” is,
however, entirely accidental. If either of the factors changes, this will
cause a change in the other factor, too, and start a process of interaction
where the change in one factor will continuously be supported by the
reaction of the other factor. The whole system will be moving in the
direction of the primary change, but much further. This is what we mean
by cumulative causation.
If, for example, we assume that for some reason white prejudice could
be decreased and discrimination mitigated, this is likely to cause a rise in
Negro standards, which may decrease white prejudice still a little more,
which would again allow Negro standards to rise, and so on through
mutual interaction. If, instead, discrimination should become intensified, we
should see the vicious circle spiraling downward. The original change can
as easily be a change of Negro standards upward or downward. The effects
would, in a similar manner, run back and forth in the interlocking system
of interdependent causation. In any case, the initial change would be
supported by consecutive waves of back-effects from the reactions of the
other factor.
The same principle holds true if we split one of our two variables into
component factors. A rise in Negro employment, for instance, will raise
family incomes, standards of nutrition, housing, and health, the possibil-
ities of giving the Negro youth more education, and so forth, and all these
effects of the initial change, will, in their turn, improve the Negroes’
possibilities of getting employment and earning a living. The original push
could have been on some other factor than employment, say, for example,
an improvement of health or educational facilities for Negroes. Through
action and interaction the whole system of the Negro’s ‘‘status” would
have been Set in motion in the direction indicated by the first push. Much
the same thing holds true of the development of white prejudice. Even
assuming no changes in Negro standards, white prejudice can change, for
example, as a result of an increased general knowledge about biology,
eradicating some of the false beliefs among whites concerning Negro racial
inferiority. If this is accomplished, it will in some degree censor the hostile
and derogatory valuations which fortify the false beliefs, and education will
then be able to fight racial beliefs with more success.
By this we have only wanted to give a hint of an explanatory scheme of
dynamic causation which we are going to utilize throughout this inquiry.
As pointed out in Appendix 3, and as we shall find in later chapters, the
interrelations are in reality much more complicated than in our abstract
illustrations, and there are all sorts of irregularities in the reaction of
various factors. But the complications should not force us to give up our
main hypothesis that a cumulative principle is working in social change. It
is actually this hypothesis which gives a theoretical meaning to the Negro
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