SOME EFFECTS OF INDUSTRIALIST I ON ON AFRICAN
PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT.
by
S. BIESHEUVEL.
1. THE INEVITABILITY OF CHANGE IN CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS.
The effects of industrialisation and other economic
changes on all phases of African community life in.the Union
of South Africa are so pervasive and far-reaching that one can
only hope to deal with one or two of them in the space of one
address.
I shall therefore confine myself to a discussion of
personality development, particularly that part which is
commonly referred to as "moral character", for this is likely
to be of particular interest to a conference on Christian
responsibility.
One frequently hears the view that when Africans lose
contact with their own traditions - that is, those current in a
particular tribal society - their conduct in the moral sphere
tends to deteriorate.
This view implies that (a) there is
something particularly appropriate to the African mind in their
own codes of conduct and moral values|
and (b) that every
effort should be made to retain all those features of the
traditional codes that are not inconsistent with Christian
morality, with education, and with other demands made by
Western civilised life.
We can dispose at once of the notion that there is
some intrinsic connection between traditional African
personality and race.
Apart from certain temperamental
affinities in African cultures that may have a racial origin,
personality development is entirely a cultural matter.
Each
culture, by virtue of the manner in which children are brought
up, its prevalent social relations, beliefs and values,
produces the kind of personalities most suited to its needs.
And/....
And these needs have little to do with race and are mostly
determined by historical, geographic, economical and social
circumstances.
As the latter change, so cultures change,
and with them, the personalities that they produce.
The belief that one can retain particular
attributes of personality, particular habits or values, in
isolation from the culture which gave rise to them, and which
has itself disintegrated, rests on a misunderstanding of how
character development comes about and of how it reflects the
needs and structure of a society.
Traditional African societies were characterised
by elaborate family systems, which prescribed many of the
roles which the individual was to perform, the obligations
between individuals and the rights and satisfactions one
could enjoy.
Other roles, equally prescribed, were
determined by political and religious functions.
All
individual actions were governed by these relationships,
made real and maintained by systematic and strictly
traditional training, by ceremonies and ritual practices,
including communally enforced sanctions against deviant
conduct.
When the core of this social system, namely the
extended family living in a specific association with other
families within the same subsistence economy, is disturbed,
the elaborate network of reciprocal duties, of restraints
and aspirations, gradually disintegrates with it.
That this kind of disturbance has in fact occurred
on a vast scale is too obvious to require demonstration.
The loss of land, and all that goes with it, the migrant
labour system, the introduction of a money economy, the
settlement in urban areas., the acquisition by both sexes
of new economic roles through participation in work, and
above all, the reduction of the family to little more than
the biological unit, and often not even that, are all changes
thet are sufficiently well known.
No better illustration could be given of the manner
in which previously powerful.social institutions lose their
x
meaning in a new context than was provided by Holleman in
his study of Bantu marriage and the part played by lobolo in
it.
In its traditional setting, the function of lobolo -
paid in cattle by the groom's to the bride's family - was to
transfer the right to her person and her children from her
own to her husband's paternal kin group.
It sealed a legal
contract by the establishment of reciprocal obligations, in
which gains and losses as between the kinship groups were ■
neatly balanced, the "woman losing party" gaining cattle
whereby they in turn, through a son's marriage, could gain a
woman to procreate children for their line.
In this way,
the payment of lobolo also established new and intricate
kinship relations, becoming an essential element in creating
and maintaining an orderly tribal society.
Furthermore, the
lobolo herds were a concrete and relatively enduring guarantee
that the reciprocal obligations would be met.
Lobolo,
therefore, had significance only in terms of a particular
relationship between family groups.
It was not an individual
xx
transaction.
Holleman points out that "the very absence of
the/....
x
J.F. Holleman; "The Bantu Marriage".
Paper read at 8 th
Annual Conference of the Institute of Administrators of
Non-European Affairs, September 3rd, 1959.
xx
op. cit. p. 1 !+.
..
- If the customary lineage structure in present-day urban Bantu
society renders it unsuitable for the continuation of the
traditional concept of Bantu marriage as a transaction between
two kinship groups for the purpose of family procreation ....
With it goes the traditional concept of lobolo, the very
essence of which is rooted in the traditional lineage
structure".
Yet lobolo continues to be paid in a large
percentage of urban marriages, but it is a lobolo which has
acquired an entirely different function.
"It is against a
background of an emerging individualism born of a crumbling
traditional culture and a largely shattered kinship
structure, of a moral instability partly conditioned by the
grossly unbalanced sex-ratio at the ages of courtship and
marriage, and of severe economic stress - paradoxically
accompanied by a steep cash lobolo - that we have to approach
the new concept of lobolo", says Holleman.
It is now a
cash payment, the responsibility of the individual parties
and not of their respective kinship groups.
It no longer
serves as an enduring guarantee of marital productivity and
stability, for the money may be spent as soon as it has been
paid over, and it is unlikely to be used by the bride's
family for a similar marital purpose.
In fact, much of it
is spent on providing a trousseau and a wedding feast, which
is looked upon as an essential ingredient of a respectable
marriage and which enhances the social status of the
contracting parties.
Other elements are the woman's desire
for self-recognition, the lobola being an indication of the
prospective husband's regard for her;
a compensation'to the'
parents for the money spent on educating their daughter;
the provision of some symbolic security for the marriage
bond/....
and
bond in a society where tradition has lost its meaning and
new social conventions are still in the process of being
established,
Holleman also reports a growing tendency for
the bride herself, as a wage earner, to provide part or all
of the lobolo, which is thereupon officially paid by the
groom to her father.
three purposes;
By this means, the bride achieves
"to attain in proper fashion the enhanced
status of the married woman 5
to fulfil her obligation
towards her own family and so secure her right to fall back
on their support when she needs it;
to assert her
independence as a wage-earner, wife and mother, should the
*
man fail her as a husband and father of her children".
We here f ind that lobolo has inverted its meaning, for in
this form it may serve to vest parental rights to children
in the mother, and it certainly contributes nothing to
stabilise the marriage bond and to maintain consistent order
in African society.
I have dealt with this phenomenon of change in the
nature and function of the institution of lobolo at some
length, because it demonstrates the futility of the
argument that one should endeavour to retain traditional
institutions that were of positive value in regulating
behaviour in tribal cultures, in the new African societies
that are evolving today.
When the structure of a society
has radically altered its character, its former institutions
may float about for a while as disembodied ghosts;
can never be restored to life.
but they
They can only serve to
confuse new generations in their search for standards and
values adapted to the new conditions in which they find
themselves.
It is from the realities of the present
circumstances/....
3£
-
circumstances of African urban life that new codes must
spring to life.
2. THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL CIRCUMSTANCES CN FERSONAIITY
DEVELOPMENT IN URBAN AFRICAN COMMUNITIES.
2.1. Tradition-Directed Personalit ies.
From the child-rearing practices in
undisturbed tribal societies, there emerge - if one can
generalise at all - personalities who are traditiondirected, who are highly sensitive to the conduct
requirements for various roles and life situations as
embodied in the unchanging customs, values and beliefs
of the culture.
Such persons express individuality
only in minor everyday relations, but not in so far as
the satisfaction of their instinctive impulses are
concerned, or in the objects which they pursue, or the
social duties which they have to perform.
Conformity
is ensured by the fear of incurring public, disapproval.
Actions .are "wrong" only in so far as they are likely to
lead to this result.
Because his ideas of self are .
built up almost entirely in terms of social relations,
the African tribesman acquires a personality structure
which is relatively lacking in internalised controls.
His conscience is a public conscience, he is moved by
shame rather than by guilt, and his anxieties, powerful
agents both of social constraint and disruption, are
externalised and projected in the form of actions by
witches and ancestors.
In the urban African townships as they exist
in the Union today - or even in the rural communities such personalities can no longer develop, because the
economic basis of the society for which they were
functional, and the kinship relations which were the
core of that society's social order, have been
radically altered.
2 .2 . Inner-Directed Personalities.
In the value systems of the Western
communities of the modern world, freedom of the
individual and self-expression have for long been
prominent notions.
In these cultures, personality
therefore becomes almost synonymous with individuality.
Personality variations,do, however, occur within a
framework of effective socialisation, the principle of
which is that each individual respects the rights of
others and gives up a portion of his freedom to the
community, in order better to be able to enjoy the
rest.
A. code of values, relating- to property, sexual
satisfactions, health, the right to knowledge and many
others, determines the restraints subject to which
freedom is exercised.
Though the community has a
number of means at its disposal to enforce compliance
with these restraints, the principal pressure t o w a r d s ^
conformity comes from within the individual himself.
Through the medium of his home environment, principally
the precept, example, approval and disapproval of his
parents, and with the secondary assistance of Church
and school, the required social restraints are at a
very early stage embedded in his personality structure.
Riesman et al, to whom I owe this analysis of social
persona]ity, liken this internal control system to a
psychic/.....
Ri ^ sman5
iS S *
° } a z e r 5 and R - Denneys
"The Lonely
Neu ? o r T 1 c f 5u ? nCh° r B° ° k S ’ 4 1 6 ’ ^ l e d a y
& Co.
>
psychic gyroscope, sensitive to signals from parents
and similar authority figures.
Once the latter have
directed him on a particular course, the individual will
be kept there with a minimum of external regulation.
The internal regulating mechanism operates through the
medium of guilt, experienced when deviations occur.
The development of this type of character is primarily
dependent, not so much on the acceptance of certain
values by the community, as on the continued existence
of a particular kind of home life, with close and
continuous contact between parents and children during
the early years.
The conduct of the parents should
be such as to demand some measure of respect, if not of
admiration, so as to make them suitable subjects for
self-identification.
The parent-child relationship
should be one in which discipline is always tempered by
affection.
Such inner-directed personalities function
most effectively when the psychic gyroscope is not set
too finely - so as to avoid guilt-ridden personalities and when the value-system directing it is broadly based
in the humanism of the West - so as to avoid bigotry,
intolerance or exploitation.
2.3* Other-Directed Personalities.
Signs have of late made their appearance which
suggest that the inner-directed personality is no longer
the most common end-product of the pressures towards
socialisation that operate in Western countries, and that
it has even ceased to be the ideal personality towards
the production of which education is being consciously
directed.
There is. a distinct tendency for the
pressure-exerting agency to become once again the social
environment/.t...
_
environment;
o/
_
but instead of the highly organised, .structured,
finifr-arrd— physically present group of the tribe, it is a
much wider, ill-defined and non-localisable group of the
/
cosmopolitan world, .the middle-class, the teen-agers, the /
social set, or similar culture, to which conformity is
demanded.
Instead of having an unalterable set of customs,
these groups are strongly influenced in their habits by
changeable fashions.
Instead of being limited to face to
face contacts, their communication system relies on mass
media such as the daily press, the international journals,
radio, films, and records, whereby the stimuli towards new
attitudes, tastes and manners can be readily diffused.
Other-directed persona]ities are less reliant on an innercode than on an inner mechanism which makes them responsive
to the influences that emanate from the particular social
environment to which they are tuned in.
In Riesman's
metaphor, the gyroscope has been replaced by a radar, and
although shame and guilt are still controlling factors,
the other-directed personality is more prone to experience
vague anxiety, lest he should fail to conform to the
changing standards, or to have status in, his particular social environment.
Other-direction does not necessarily imply a
deterioration in moral character.
If the culture to which
the individual is sensitive is able to maintain socially
constructive values, his basic behaviour need not suffer,
despite superficiality of attitudes and manners.
Nor
should it be thought that inner- and other-direction are
mutually exclusive.
Much will depend on the balance struck
between parental and group influences, on the particular
social environment that happens to be dominant, and on the
institutions that are effective within it.
Some/
Some frailty may be evident in the teen-ager
culture, because the peer-group in this case has little to
give that is positive and formative, and the symbols that are
available for identification are as immature and
unsubstantial as the teen-agers themselves.
Frovided their
social stratum, level of education, and parental sense of
responsibility are good enough, they are eventually swayed
by more solid social influences so that the majority
achieve adequate maturity.
It is only under adverse social
circumstances that such personality formations as the
ducktails and the teddy-boys, the beatniks and the blousons
noirs, to name but a few of the local variants, make their
appearance;
and although they are characterised by
sensitivity to a group spirit with an international spread,
they are nevertheless only a pathological manifestation of
other-direction, conditioned by a combination of circumstances
in which deterioration of home-life, parental indifference,
lack of discipline, the relative absence of opportunities for
achievement,and adverse stimulation of the imagination by
commercial interests are dominant factors.
3. FERSONAIITY DEVELOPMENT TV URBAN AFRICAN GROUPS.
In speculating on the assimilation of African
cultures to our own, we are inclined to overlook that the
latter is itself in a state of fairly rapid change.
Our
digression into the social psychology of personality was
necessary to give some idea of the nature of this evolution,
which may well throw light on the course which African
personality development is likely to take.
Our observations
will vary according to the stage of transition in African
societiesi at which they are made.
The most important of the transitional groups are
- l i ­
the urban location dwellers, because they are numerous, and
are also most clearly committed to a way of life
to our own.
similar
They have been drawn fully into our economy,
though they still are only on the threshold of our culture.
Unfortunately the approach has been by way of the back yard,
which has not been conducive to a promising start.
Human
relations have tended to become rather untidy, in keeping
with the general state of these places.
This is
particularly marked in the case of the urban African family,
which has to take over the child-rearing function from the
K
extended tribal kinship group.
Holleman has summarised
some recent findings on urban marriage.
He notes in the
first place the great disparity in the sex ratio, there
being approximately two men for every woman in the town
locations.
\
There is also a tendency for black couples to
marry at a later age than they used to, and much later then
whites.
Nearly half of the white bridegrooms are under
25, whilst over half of the black grooms are 30 years and
older.
As there is little difference in the age of black
and white brides, it would appear that it is particularly
the men who are reluctant to accept the full responsibilities
of marriage.
These two factors together have led to a very
high illegitimacy rate, estimated to be between *f0 - 6Ctf of
all births.
Most African women in urban areas have one or
more children before marriage, and this is by no means
confined to working-class homes.
There is, furthermore,
such confusion in the existing laws as they apply to the
various forms of marriage that do occur, that "among the
emerging class of educated and wage-earning women., ....
there is a strong feeling of social and legal insecurity ... .
and/....
3C
and a growing indifference for a legally sanctioned
marriage as an effective frame within which to raise a
x
family".
Many unions are therefore irregular or short­
lived, which means that the background for the rearing of
children is unstable and increasingly matrifocal, the
mothers themselves or the maternal grandparents bearing the
responsibility for their upbringing.
What kind of education is being provided in this
location environment?
A systematic study of the relations
between parents and children and of the ideas and attitudes
that govern personality development in an urban African
XX
community was carried out by Yette Glass, a member of the
staff of the National Institute for Personnel Research, with
the aid of some African field assistants.
She studied a
group of 100 families, 23 of them intensively, in
Alexandra Township near Johannesburg.
origin.
All were of Zulu
Only 7C# of the fathers lived with the family, and
90^ of the mothers were at home and not in any kind of
•
employment.
Most of the attention given by the mothers to
their children was of a physical kind.
When asked to
describe their maternal duties, the majority referred to
such matters as nursing and washing, and very few mentioned
playing with or talking to the children, telling stories
or having fun,
Very little overt affection was apparent
in their relationship even with the youngest children,
though/....
x
Holleman, op. cit. p. 2^.
xx ■
Unpublished study.
This account is based on a
personal communication from Mrs. Glass.
It was
presented in greater detail by the writer in "The
Development of Personality in African Cultures", read
at a CSA Meeting of Specialists on the Basic Psychological Structure of African and Madagascan
Populations", Tananarive. August, 1959-
though all parents denied that they did not experience
affection.
Their attitude was generally neither positive
nor negative;
only 1 % spoke of "loving" their children,
Sf of deriving pleasure from them, whilst 15# openly
admitted that they did not like concerning themselves with
their children;
the majority just accepted it as a duty,
not a matter of liking or not liking.
With the older
children, there was very little personal relationship at
all.
The fathers were at home too little to see much of
their children.
They rarely held them, or played with
them, and then only when they were very young.
When
parents were asked to describe their relationship with their
children, they mostly described it as "friendly", whereby
they did not seem to have anything more intimate than "being
kind to them" in mind.
Children are too immature to be
considered "people" or to have a point of view, so that
I
i'
/
nothing is ever discussed with them.
Of the parents studied, only 2f stated that they
were in love.
All others claimed that their relationship
was satisfactory, but at the same time admitted quarrelling
in front of the children.
These quarrels, which concerned
money matters, drunkenness and unco-operative behaviour on
the part of the father, involved ill-treatment of the wife
by the husband in as many as h-Ofi of the cases.
In view of
the fact that all described their relationship as
satisfactory, it is clear that the system of values was
rather different from that of the average White middle
clfss home.
Another difference was apparent in the view
that it would be bad form to show affection, even when
genuinely felt, before the children.
One of the major requirements of child behaviour
was respect towards elders and unquestioning obedience.
In
- Ik reply to an Incomplete sentence-
"A well brought up child
should
the major response was*
respectful".
To the phrase;
the major response was?
" ....
" ....
" ....
be
"A good parent should .... ",
teach respect", or
teach the child to be good".
Isolated references
to honesty, obedience, and usefulness occurred.
The major
agent for teaching and discipline was the mother.
she who punished or rewarded.
It was
little attempt was made to
persuade children, to win their co-operation, to create
insight into the reasons for prohibitions or behavioural
requirements.
The child was told what was required of it,
but enforcement was mainly by threats or beatings.
Threats
referred to Europeans, policemen, occasionally deprivation
of love.
Christians also threatened with the wrath of
God in the after-life.
References to what other children
would say or think were never used as a restraining device
in controlling a child's behaviour.
Half the group stated
that punishment was always physical.
In all/the comments on
punishment, there was an undercurrent that the child should
be made to feel bad, that it should realise it had done
wrong.
Cases were also observed where a child showed
distress over something it had done, although the parents
had no means of discovering about the misdemeanour.
indicates that guilt experiences did occur.
This
In fact, as
public opinion was not used much as a deterrent, it would
appear that guilt feelings were more important than shame.
This may be due to the fact that in township life the group
as a meaningful entity has disappeared.
There is no real
in-group,to the sanctions of which one is sensitive, and
the family too has become so restricted and unstable that
it cannot be expected to exercise much moral restraint.
In view of the general reliance on physical punishment,
fear rather than guilt was likely to be the dominant
inhibiting factor, however.
Rewards, either in the form
of praise or gifts, were occasionally given, but not
necessarily immediately after the event.
invoked as a rewarding agent.
God was seldom
Rewards also seemed to be
more common as a means of giving pleasure to the parents,
or in order that one's children might compete successfully
with others, than as a means of making them conform.
Aggression among children was disapproved of, but rather
inconsistently, one beat children for fighting, and a child
who dared to hit a parent was mercilessly thrashed.
Despite the emphasis on obedience and respect, one
nevertheless liked a child who was self-reliant, independent,
and who could stand up for itself, provided the
independence did not extend to thought and opinion.
Swearing was considered one of the worst offences a child
could commit.
It invariably evoked strong affect.
SteaLing was considered to be wrong only if it involved one's
family in trouble.
One should not steal from a neighbour,
for he would most likely find out.
But no moral
disapproval attached to successful theft from some stranger
in town.
When asked to name the most important moral
attributes in children, there rarely was any mention of
spiritual values, or of internal character qualities.
One taught children to greet people properly, not to look
a person straight in the eyes, to kneel when you talk to
superiors or elders, to cup your hands when receiving a
gift, to be polite in speech and to show humility.
Respectfulness was therefore the most important attribute.
It was not an appreciation of the actual worth of another
individual that was being inculcated, however, but only the
performance of prescribed ceremonial behaviour in relation to
seniority or persons of higher status.
From the circumstances as.described by Mrs. Glass,
it follows that conditions for the replacement of a
tradition-directed by an inner-directed social personality
are most unfavourable in the homes sampled in Alexandra
Township, and this probably applies to a greater or lesser
extent to all urban townships in the Union.
Many of the
negative features of traditional child-rearing have remained,
such as the use of threats and corporal punishment as a means
of controlling behaviour, the absence of warmth in parentchild relations, failure- to create insight into the reasons
for acting in a particular manner, the attachment of greater
importance to the social form than to the inner value, lack
of concern for the inculcation of qualities conducive to
selfsteem.
/!
There have been no adequate replacements for
the binding force of kinship relations, for the reciprocitie
they imposed on every-day life and for the prescribed forms
of behaviour attached to traditional roles that have fallen
into disuse.
Even in those fairly fortunate cases where
the family unit has remained intact, the parents generally
lack the time^ inclination, or knowledge of the diversified
requirements and value system of Western society, to establish
internalised control.
Church and school touch only a small
proportion, and are generally ill-equipped to interpret and
impose the moral codes of the new society.
x
I have elsewhere summarised my conclusions on
urban personality development as follows:
"For/....
"Race, Culture and Personality".
The Hoernle Memorial
Lecture, 1959.
S.A. Institute of Race Relations, p. 16.
"For the majority of township dwellers - that is all
those except the middle class, about whom later - it is
therefore true to say that the tradition-directed personality
has disappeared and that inner-direction has failed to appear.
Nor is there a pronounced trend towards other-direction.
For this one needs more than a modicum of civilised life, one
needs a wider range of social and occupational roles, richer
interpersonal relations, more fully developed and utilised
institutions like the schools and the mass media, and better
organised, more meaningful groups.
Group formations of t h e ’
gang type there undoubtedly are, but the kind of conformity
which they impose cannot be dignified with the label of
other-direction.
They function at too crude and terroristic
a level.
One is therefore forced to conclude that many of
the township dwellers are directed only by impulse and that
such conformity as they display is imposed by the stronger
and more fear-inspiring impulse of others.
One is tempted
to coin the term "id-directed" for this type of self, though
it is a contradiction in terms to look upon such a personality
as social or as implying any significant degree of conformity.
Although these location dwellers are not entirely
devoid of culture, they come near to being so, and the
evidence in support of the view that instinctive urges
dominated their behaviour is to be found in the lawlessness
and violence which are prevalent in many urban areas, the
frequency of assaults involving stabbing, the laxity of
sexual morals and the high illegitimacy rate'J
It should not be concluded from this that in the
African urban townships, we have the personality formation
of the "ducktail" type occurring on a huge and generalised
scale.
The "id-directed" and the "ducktail" personalities
phenomena of a different sort, the former being the result of
a cultural void and the relative absence of socialisation, the
latter being largely a personality maladjustment, a reaction
against a particular set of cultural circumstances to which
current educational practices and parental attitudes are no
longer applicable.
Moreover, the id-directed personalities
are not limited to the youthful "tsotsi" gangs.
They
persist into adulthood, unless some other socialising factor
supervenes.
*+• THE SOCIALISING EFFECTS OF THE WORK SITUATION.
Such an alternate socialising factor is in fact
provided by the work situation.
Here Africans are subjected
to the discipline of regularity and punctuality.
depends largely on their own actions.
Their fate
Effort and
responsibility tend to be rewarded by continuity of
employment and higher wages, whereas laziness and
carelessness more frequently end in dismissal.
Team spirit
grows among groups of fellow-workers, constructive leadership
may be experienced from the African chargehand, and respect
for authority developed towards supervisors generally.
The result is the emergence in the individual of a
new identity, a sense of self-respect, and with it, a respect
for others.
Racial antagonism may frequently cut across this
process, but on the whole one can look upon the work situation
as capable of providing some of the socialisation that
township life has failed to give.
Occupational adjustment
studies carried out among African industrial operatives have
clearly demonstrated the development of social attitudes.
Good human relations at work are looked upon as of paramount
importance, at times even outranking wage differences within
a particular range.
Frequent references are also made to
the satisfactions to be derived from working under a
considerate management and from competent supervision.
Above all, the urban industrial worker - as distinct from
the rural migrant - craves security and opportunities for
advancement, both indications of a desire for a more settled
urban life, which presupposes a willingness to accept and
contribute to a greater measure of social order.
Through
the work situation, we therefore have a great opportunity to
begin the process of social reclamation which the townships
so desperately need.
5. THE URBAN AFRICAN MIDDLE CLASS.
Much of what has been said of townshipslife, and of
the way in which personality develops
there, does not apply
to that small proportion of the population who have,
economically and culturally, achieved a middle class position.
These are the clerks, the Government officials, entertainers,
shopkeepers, businessmen and a sprinkling of the higher
professions, particularly teachers, social workers and nurses.
Ey virtue of their education, their more favourable economic
position, their closer contact with V/estern culture, they
have been able to establish within the township a milieu more
favourable to the growth of an integrated and purposeful
personality.
Yet even here, the conditions for the growth
of inner-direction are not very favourable.
We have seen that the parents are the principal
agency in bringing about this personality structure.
The
parental generation is, however, frequently unable to give
the necessary guidance and moral training, either because
they lack the necessary education or experience of the
requirements of Western civilisation, or because they are
themselves confused and maladjusted.
The middle class
group is not sufficiently numerous nor sufficiently
concentrated in homogeneous residential areas, to be able
to provide much mutual assistance.
Hence its members are
dependent on their white counterpart to provide a model of
civilised life, its customs and values.
This, however, is
not sufficient to provide the internalisation of these codes,
for that requires intimate personal contact at a tender age,
and the availability of authority figures for identification
with which the child has close emotional ties.
conditions can only rarely be satisfied.
These
The school and the
Church can of course stress the importance of moral values in
*
everyday life, but Rae Sherwood, in her important study of
African middle class personalities, has pointed out that their
life experience often contradicts the validity of this
teaching.
Only too frequently do they find that adherence
to Western values often brings them less satisfaction and
reward than by conforming to standards of conduct acceptable
to the White group.
This applies in particular to their
behaviour at work, where initiative and independence on the
part of the African is often resented by a White supervisor,
who would prefer to see him obedient and respectful.
Such
conflicts might not have mattered so much if internal controls
had been established through the medium of parents at an
early age;
but it does create confusion and duality of
attitude at a later stage, and it is significant that Rae
Sherwood and other investigators have in fact found a good
deal of anxiety in professional and clerical people.
Her
conclusion that the circumstances under which middle class
Africans/....
*
Mrs. Rae Sherwood carried out this study at the National
Institute for Personnel Research, on behalf of the Council
for_Social Research and the Department of Bantu
Administration.
The report has not yet been completed, but
two^papers have been published; "A Comparison of Job
Attitudes among African and American Professional Workers",
Proc. S.A. Psychol. Assoc., No. 7-8, 1956-57, and "The Bantu
?ola
p ^ St^dy of Role Expectations", J. Soc. Psychol.,
Africans grow up in the Union of South Africa favour the
development among them of an other-directed social
personality can be fully endorsed.
By conforming to the
requirements of their peer-group, both black and white, will
they be most assured of adjustment, acceptance and
advancement.
6. AFRICAN MORAL LEADERSHIP.
African moral leadership, or the application of the
ethical principles of the West to political, professional,
social affairs will inevitably have to be provided by the
present African middle class.
The majority of these leaders
will have other-directed personalities, and although this
does not necessarily mean, as we have seen, that their moral
fibre is less tough than it ought to be, it does demand that
there should be a profound appreciation of the significance of
Western values and an acceptance of their validity at this
level of African society.
For if those that are looked-up
to by lesser African groups do conduct themselves in a manner
consistent with these values - helped to do so by the Church,
education, and the White peer-group - their example will tend
to be followed, if not in the spirit at first, then at least
in the letter, which as a useful beginning.
That knowledge and appreciation of Western ethical
codes do in fact exist was shown by a number of moral attitude
studies conducted by the writer about 19 3 ^, and repeated again
x
some twenty years later.
An inventory was drawn up containing
forty imaginary conversations between five African men.
Each
conversation/....
*
S. Biesheuvel.
"The Measurement of African Attitudes towards
European Ethical Concepts, Customs, Laws and Administration of
Justice", J. Nat. Inst. Personnel Res. Vol. 6, No. 1, 1955.
In the same journal (Vol. 7, No. 3> 1959)s "Further Studies
on the Measurement of Attitudes towards Western Ethical
Concepts".
In the S.A.J. of Science Vol. 53, No. 1 2 , 1957:
"The Influence of Social Circumstances on the Attitudes of
Educated Africans".
conversation dealt with some situation involving a problem of
conduct, each speaker giving in one sentence his.opinion why
an African should or should not act in a particular manner in
that situation.
The situations dealt with interpersonal
relations, both black and white, with the statutory:- and
customary requirements w^.ich Africans have to observe, and
with matters of belief.
Respondents to the inventory were
required to rank the five speakers, in each situation,
according to the wisdom of their opinions.
The inventory was
constructed in such a manner that each opinion was
representative of one of eight attitudes, namely ethical,
religious, expediency, tribal traditional, fear, compliance,
non-compliance and pleasure.
The ethical attitude was rather
broader than this label implies.
Actually it represents a
rational motivation, an acceptance and appreciation of the
ethical principles, legal concepts and scientific ideology
underlying standards of conduct in a Western society.
The
religious attitude concerned the precepts of the Bible.
Expediency concerned mainly the motivation of getting along
in the world and avoiding trouble.
The fear motive related
to punitive sanctions, especially those exercised by the
courts.
The tribal traditional attitude was rather non­
specific, bein£ represented chiefly by such sayings as "We
should not do. this, for it is not in accordance with the
customs of our people".
The compliant attitude was similarly
stated, but represented deference to the traditional
requirements of the white group.
The non-compliant attitude,
on the other hand, represented an aggressive rejection of
these requirements, in each case with .a detailed reason of
the grounds on which this rejection was based.
The pleasure
attitude represented a purely hedonistic motivation, the
justification of action on the grounds of its being enjoyable.
Collection Number: AD1715
SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF RACE RELATIONS (SAIRR), 1892-1974
PUBLISHER:
Collection Funder:- Atlantic Philanthropies Foundation
Publisher:- Historical Papers Research Archive
Location:- Johannesburg
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