Democracy under Three Different Cultures

ROM Herodotus to the present, travelers have been writing about the characteristics and customs of the peoples among whom they have sojourned. In the sixteenth century, with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and the rise of nationalism, officials of the newly formed states began to take interest in the differences between the peoples of the various political unities. Ambassadors began reporting on the habits and temperaments of the nations to whom they were accredited.' One such report was that of the Venetian Ambassadors on the English under Henry VIII. A more comprehensive one was that by a traveler named Andrew Borde, called the Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, which described almost every people of Europe.2 Since then, writings of this sort have multiplied until the world's literature is overloaded with them. Generally speaking, most of them commit a common error in their characterizations. This consists in assigning most of the virtues to such nationalities as the writers fancy, including, of course, their own, and attributing the vices to the people they dislike or fear.3 Thus, humankind has been classified into superior and inferior, clever and stupid, noble and ignoble, or good and bad folks. On the whole, the observations have been superficial and the generalizations of a subjective nature with results that are more often ludicrous than illuminating. Only a few out of the many efforts can be accepted as of real scientific value. In spite of the bad light in which so much of this literature has put the subject, there are undoubtedly authentic differences in folk behavior which merit careful study and description. Therefore, it behooves the sociologist making such a study to apply to the task whatever scientific methods he can command in order to bring an objective viewpoint to the problem. This paper does not claim to have fulfilled this ideal but it does venture to propose its possibilities. An approach may be made by recalling certain fairly well substantiated facts of general significance relative to national conduct. In the first place, collective temperament or behavior can no more be considered a constant or invariable factor than can individual conduct. It varies from time to time, even radically in the space of a few years. Witness, for instance, what has transpired within two decades in Russia, where a pacific and mystic folk have developed new habits and a different tempo. Obviously, however

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