o
the best. Every group of any kind whatsoever demands that each of
its members shall help defend group interests. Every group
stigmatizes any one who fails in zeal, labor, and sacrifices for
group interests. Thus the sentiment of loyalty to the group, or
the group head, which was so strong in the Middle Ages, is kept
up, as far as possible, in regard to modern states and
governments. The group force is also employed to enforce the
obligations of devotion to group interests. It follows that
judgments are precluded and criticism is silenced.

+20. Chauvinism.+ That patriotism may degenerate into a vice is
shown by the invention of a name for the vice: chauvinism. It is
a name for boastful and truculent group self-assertion. It
overrules personal judgment and character, and puts the whole
group at the mercy of the clique which is ruling at the moment.
It produces the dominance of watchwords and phrases which take
the place of reason and conscience in determining conduct. The
patriotic bias is a recognized perversion of thought and judgment
against which our education should guard us.

+21. The struggle for existence and the competition of life;
antagonistic cooperation.+ The struggle for existence must be carried on
under life conditions and in connection with the competition of life.
The life conditions consist in variable elements of the environment, the
supply of materials necessary to support life, the difficulty of
exploiting them, the state of the arts, and the circumstances of
physiography, climate, meteorology, etc., which favor life or the
contrary. The struggle for existence is a process in which an individual
and nature are the parties. The individual is engaged in a process by
which he wins from his environment what he needs to support his
existence. In the competition of life the parties are men and other
organisms. The men strive with each other, or with the flora and fauna
with which they are associated. The competition of life is the rivalry,
antagonism, and mutual displacement in which the individual is involved
with other organisms by his efforts to carry on the struggle for
existence for himself. It is, therefore, the competition of life which
is the societal element, and which produces societal organization. The
number present and in competition is another of the life conditions. At
a time and place the life conditions are the same for a number of