The Principles of Ethics: In Two Volumes

10. Obedience

Ethics_V1_401-450.indd 443 1/16/12 9:33 AM CHAPTER 10 Obedience 161. under the one name II obedience" are grouped two kinds of conduct, which have widely different sanctions : the one sanction being permanent and the other temporary . Filial obedience and political obedience being thus bracketed, the idea of virtuousness is associated with both; and almost everyone thinks that a submission which is praiseworthy in the one case, is praiseworthy in the other also. Here we have to recognize the truth that while due subordination of child to parent originates in a permanent order of Nature, and is unconditionally good, the subordination of citizen to government is appropriate to a process which is transitional, and is but conditionally good. It is true that in societies which have had a genesis of the kind erroneously supposed by Sir Henry Maine to be universal , the two kinds of obedience have a common root: the patriarchal group grows out of the family, and, by insensible steps, the subjection of children to parents passes into the subjection of adult sons to their father, and the subjection of family groups to the father of the father or patriarch. It is true, also, that by union of many patriarchal groups there is produced an organization in which a supreme patriarch is the 443 Ethics_V1_401-450.indd 444 1/16/12 9:34 AM 444 The Inductions of Ethics political head. But in developed societies, such as those of modern days, these primitive relationships have wholly disappeared , and the two kinds of obedience have become quite distinct. Nevertheless,. being in large measure prompted by the same sentiment, the two commonly vary together. In contemplating the facts, we will first take those which concern the subordination of child to father, and then those which concern the subordination of citizen to government. 162. The earliest social stages are characterized not only by absence of chiefs, and therefore absence of the sentiment which causes political submission, but they are often characterized by such small submission of sons as renders the human family group near akin to the brutal family group-a group in which parental responsibility on the one side, and filial subjection on the other, soon cease. The American races yield instances. The Araucanians "never punish their male children, considering chastisement degrading, and calculated to render the future man pusillanimous and unfit for the duties of a warrior." Among the Arawaks affection seems to prompt this lenient treatment: a father "will bear any insult or inconvenience from his child tamely, rather than administer personal correction." And then of a Dakota boy we read that "at ten or twelve, he openly rebels against all domestic rule, and does not hesitate to strike his father: the parent then goes off rubbing his hurt, and boasting to his neighbors of the brave boy whom he has begotten." Some Old World races supply kindred illustrations . Of the East Africans, Burton says: "When childhood is past, the father and son become natural enemies, after the manner of wild beasts." So, too, when, writing about the Bedouin character, and commenting on "the daily quarrels between parents and children," Burckhardt tells us that "instead of teaching the boy civil manners, the father desires him to beat and pelt the strangers who come to the tent," to cultivate his high spirit: adding elsewhere that "the young man, as soon as it is in his power, emancipates himself from Ethics_V1_401-450.indd 445 1/16/12 9:34 AM Obedience 445 the father's authority ... whenever he can become master of a tent himself ... he listens to no advice, nor obeys any earthly command but that of his own will." Associated with insubordination to parents, we sometimes have cruelty shown to them in age. A Chippewayan old man "is neglected, and treated with great disrespect, even by his own children"; and the Kamtschadales "did not even consider it a violation of filial duty to kill them [their parents] when they became burdensome ." Towards mothers, more especially, is disregard shown: their relatively low position as slaves to men, prompting contempt for them. By the Dakotas "the son is taught to make his mother toil for him." In Fiji "one of the first lessons taught the infant is to strike its mother, a neglect of which would beget a fear lest the child should grow up to be a coward." When a young Hottentot has been...