Comment observer les mœurs
- Langue:
- anglais
- État:
- Œuvre complète
- Paternité:
- Écrite par l'auteur
- État du texte:
- Aucun bruit de numérisation détecté (mesure automatique sur tout le texte, non vérifiée à la main)
- Étendue:
- ~70 300 mots · 334 passages
Citer cette œuvre
- APAHarriet Martineau. (n.d.). How to Observe Morals and Manners [Comment observer les mœurs]. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/fr/works/harriet-martineau/how-to-observe-morals-and-manners
- MLAHarriet Martineau. How to Observe Morals and Manners [Comment observer les mœurs]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/fr/works/harriet-martineau/how-to-observe-morals-and-manners.
- ChicagoHarriet Martineau. How to Observe Morals and Manners [Comment observer les mœurs]. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/fr/works/harriet-martineau/how-to-observe-morals-and-manners.
Référence de l'édition que reproduit SigPhi : SigPhi en est la reproduction numérique, pas l'éditeur. L'année de l'édition ne figure pas dans les métadonnées (d'où « n.d. ») et le traducteur n'apparaît que lorsqu'il est connu.
De quoi il s'agit
How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838) : comment étudier une société qui n'est pas la sienne sans se tromper soi-même.
Contexte et histoire
Le premier manuel de méthode sociologique jamais écrit, et écrit avant que la sociologie ait un nom. Martineau met en garde contre le biais de l'observateur et dit qu'il faut regarder ce que les gens font plutôt que ce qu'ils disent faire — deux cents ans avant que cela devienne un lieu commun.
Contexte éditorial, non une source citable : contrairement aux passages de l'œuvre, ces données ne peuvent pas être vérifiées dans le corpus.
What does the traveller want to know? He is aware that, wherever he goes, he will find men, women, and children; strong men and weak men; just men and selfish men. He knows that he will everywhere find a necessity for food, clothing, and shelter; and everywhere some mode of general agreement how to live together. He knows that he will everywhere find birth, marriage, and death; and therefore domestic affections. What results from all these elements of social life does he mean to look for? For want of settling this question, one traveller sees nothing truly, because the state of things is not consistent with his speculations as to how human beings ought to live together; another views the whole with prejudice, because it is not like what he has been accustomed to see at home; yet each of these would shrink from the recognition of his folly, if it were fully placed before him. The first would be ashamed of having tried any existing community by an arbitrary standard of his own--an act much like going forth into the wilderness to see kings' houses full of men in soft raiment; and the other would perceive that different nations may go on judging one another by themselves till doomsday, without in any way improving the chance of self-advancement and mutual understanding. Going out with the disadvantage of a habit of mind uncounteracted by an intellectual aim, will never do. The traveller may as well stay at home, for anything he will gain in the way of social knowledge. The two considerations just mentioned must be subordinated to the grand one,--the only general one,--of the relative amount of human happiness. Every element of social life derives its importance from this great consideration. The external conveniences of men, their internal emotions and affections, their social arrangements, graduate in importance precisely in proportion as they affect the general happiness of the section of the race among whom they exist.…