Human Nature and the Social Order

Charles Horton Cooley's account of human beings, their behavior, and how they organize themselves has been praised for its originality, and remains an underappreciated and much-cited classic of sociology. Human Nature and the Social Order is a logically composed book which straddles and to a degree transcends the boundaries between philosophy, psychology and sociology. Cooley wished to clarify the behavior of human beings, how they come to interact and socialize with one another, and how they arrive at a definition of themselves that is in harmony with their own well-being and that of others. Later in the book, Cooley discusses qualities which have been promoted or felt as necessary for humans in civilized society. Good, conscientious and beneficent leadership, the possession of a moral compass and conscience, and the excellent values of freedom receive their own discussions with positive and negative elements comprising the well-rounded analyses. With leadership, Cooley is primarily concerned with the qualities that see a good leader promoted to the higher echelons of the social order - but also the fact that his best qualities may detrimentally eclipse the rest of his personality. Cooley also examines human nature when it becomes degenerate, reflecting on whether such degeneracy is inherited, and to what extent it can become accepted among groups of people. What arouses hostility between people and their social orders, where this function of the mind originated, and the use of fear in causing hostility are matters Cooley also takes interest in. This printing of Human Nature and the Social Order is adapted from the revised and updated 1922 edition, and is inclusive of the author's original notes and references appended at the close of each chapter.