k City can and does
endure a great deal in the way of individual eccentricity that a smaller
city like Boston would not tolerate. In any case, and this is the point
of these observations, even in the most casual relations of life, people
do not behave in the presence of others as if they were living alone
like Robinson Crusoe, each on his individual island. The very fact of
their consciousness of each other tends to maintain and enforce a great
body of convention and usage which otherwise falls into abeyance and is
forgotten. Collective behavior, then, is the behavior of individuals
under the influence of an impulse that is common and collective, an
impulse, in other words, that is the result of social interaction.

2. Social Unrest and Collective Behavior

The most elementary form of collective behavior seems to be what is
ordinarily referred to as "social unrest." Unrest in the individual
becomes social when it is, or seems to be, transmitted from one
individual to another, but more particularly when it produces something
akin to the milling process in the herd, so that the manifestations of
discontent in A communicated to B, and from B reflected back to A,
produce the circular reaction described in the preceding chapter.

The significance of social unrest is that it represents at once a
breaking up of the established routine and a preparation for new
collective action. Social unrest is not of course a new phenomenon; it
is possibly true, however, that it is peculiarly characteristic, as has
been said, of modern life. The contrast between the conditions of modern
life and of primitive society suggests why this may be true.

The conception which we ought to form of primitive society, says Sumner,
is that of small groups scattered over a territory. The size of the
group will be determined by the conditions of the struggle for existence
and the internal organization of each group will correspond (1) to the
size of the group, and (2) to the nature and intensity of the struggle
with its neighbors.

Thus war and peace have reacted on each other and developed
each other, one within the group, the other in the intergroup
relation. The closer the neighbors, and the stronger they are,
the intenser is the warfare, and then the intenser is the
internal organization and discipline of each. Sentiments are
produced to correspond. Loyalty to the group, sacrifice for it,
hatred and contempt fo