Psychology of Citizenship is very close to social science.A side from the special fact that psychology deals with the stuff out of which men as citizens are made.It may be said that any form of scientific study is likely to make for citizenship. Science does this because science proceeds by law, hence there arises an analogy between physics and politics.
Psychology leads to citizenship because, in the first place, psychology makes a man acquainted with himself, from which knowledge he may pass on outward toward a comprehension of all mankind. What man know the things of man save by the spirit of man which is in him? If Plato made a good guess when he declared that an ideal republic should have philosophers for princes and princes for philosophers, we may guess again democratically, and assert that a real republic should have psychologists for citizens and citizens for psychologists.
The Ultimate Concept of Psychology As Citizenship
In the psychology of citizenship, it is well to note that civilization may be either good or bad. It is good for those who have the ability to absorb it, as has been the case with many who have come to us from Europe, bad for those who have no capacity for it, as in the instance of the American Indians. The study of psychology makes it possible for us to predict just what kinds of people will tolerate and assimilate the artificial ideas of civilization.
Immigration is in large measure a psychological question. It can be good for the immigrant who comes to these far-off shores for the purpose of finding more room for his efforts, just as it can be good for his host, who has an opportunity to observe how the other half lives. But the moment that the immigrant-visitor and his native-host cannot come to an understanding, immigration becomes a melting pot of most uncertain brew, a veritable witch’s cauldron.
Lack of psychological citizenship shows itself in strikes and riots, but does not fail to appear in the activity of the profiteer, the speculator. The effects which spring from such causes are felt by all souls concerned. For this reason, a psychological questionnaire which should determine the reactions of all citizens could do only good, especially at a time when the world is wobbling along its orbit.A psychological recasting of the Golden Rule would produce a new type of citizen. That is, it would teach every man that he is of like stuff with his neighbor
But when the work of effective education has been done in the individual, the social order does not always have a place for him, so that he may say, “He that begat me had no bread for me.” When, therefore, a civilization produces men who are fit for leadership but can afford them no place for the exercise of their cultivated talents such men are likely to make leaders of themselves, or they become labor agitators. There is no room for them among the captains of industry, so they make room for themselves as captains of industrialism.
