lytic theory, by showing "man to be basically emotional in his motivations and only sporadically able to sustain the tensions involved in taking thought in order to sustain his actions," reinforced the sociological disposition to emphasize the nonrational sources of social cohesion. But most Americans still clung to the political culture of individualism. They exaggerated the "omnicompetence of human beings" and left "everything up to the individual's precarious ability to 'use his head.' " They refused to admit that individuals varied in their capacities and that many of them inevitably lost out in the "individual scramble for wealth." Egalitarian dogma thus led in practice to radically inegalitarian results. Only the state could correct the inequalities generated by competitive capitalism and protect the weak against the strong.

Although the sociological tradition originated in the romantic counter‐ revolution against the Enlightenment and the idea of progress, it was taken up in the twentieth century by social democrats who objected to capitalism's "extreme emphasis upon competitiveness," as Lynd called it. Like the romantic sociologists, social democrats insisted that individuals had no being apart from society. ^* They too regretted the decline of "community," but they relied on the state, not on small intermediate groups or voluntary associations, to restore a sense of connection. When Lynd asked whether it was possible to "build urban people into vital communities," the grammatical structure of his sentence revealed more than he may have intended. People were the objects, not the subjects, of "community," as he understood it.

In the conservative sociological tradition, the tenacity of custom was seen as a useful check against innovation. For Lynd, "folkways" meant "cultural lag." Habits and "values" failed to keep pace with economic and technological change. ^† Americans retained the mental habits of pioneers

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*

"Modern science," wrote Lynd, "has discarded [the] earlier conception of a discrete, autonomous individual.... There are no Robinson Crusoes, no 'individuals' apart from other individuals." This discovery (the novelty of which Lynd exaggerated, being ignorant, like most sociologists, of the history of his own discipline) made it necessary, he argued, to discard other "folkways" as well—for example, the quaint idea that man has "soul," "mind," and "will."

†

Lynd quoted Carl Becker's Progress and Power (1936): "Mankind has entered a new phase of human progress—a time in which the acquisition of new implements of

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