This page has been validated.

SOCIAL CONTROL

PART I
THE GROUNDS OF CONTROL
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM

A condition of order at the junction of crowded city thoroughfares implies primarily an absence of collisions between men or vehicles that interfere one with another. Order cannot be said to prevail among people going in the same direction at the same pace, because there is no interference. It does not exist when persons are constantly colliding one with another. But when all who meet or overtake one another in crowded ways take the time and pains needed to avoid collision, the throng is orderly. Now, at the bottom of the notion of social order lies the same idea. The members of an orderly community do not go out of their way to aggress upon one another. Moreover, whenever their pursuits interfere they make the adjustment necessary to escape collision, and make it according to some conventional rule. If the weaker of two hunters that have brought down the same stag avoids a fight by yielding up the game, there is peace, but no order. But if the dispute is settled according to the rule that "first struck" decides

1