Organizations and cults are forever coining new expressions that sound “pat” and for this reason seem true.  As a rule, these terms and phrases are put in the shape of general statements that may or may not mean something; but their “pat” sound is used to justify all sorts of excesses and violations of individual rights.  The term “social control” is met everywhere now.  It may imply much or little, according to the construction of the users.  It is meant at least to imply that somewhere is lodged a power to bring under control or supervision the refractory or evil elements of society for the well being of the whole.  As a rule, under this phrase anything is justified which seems in some way fit for the community as a whole.  The fact that the restraint interferes with personal liberty seems to have no bearing on the matter.  Social control necessarily means that the majority of the members of a social unit shall limit the freedom of action of the individual to conform to its view.  Of course, the majority has the right because it has the power.  In the discussion of political or philosophical questions, “right” means little more or less than “power.”  A right must be based upon some custom or habit with some power to enforce it, or it cannot be claimed.  It can never be enjoyed without the power to obtain it.

The relation of society to the individual has been one long conflict.  This is necessarily true because every human organism has instincts, feelings and desires and is naturally impatient at any limitations placed upon it unless self-imposed.  On the other hand, organized society functions to preserve itself, and if the activities of the individual are hostile to this preservation the individual must give way.  Theorists of various schools are forever propounding social ideas, with the positive assurance that, if followed, they would work automatically and heal all social ills.  But it must be evident that neither from history nor philosophy can any such theory be proved.  Between the extreme anarchistic view that each person should be free of control by law, and the extreme socialistic view of an extension of state organization until all property and all industrial activity shall be administered by the state and collectively owned, social life in its relation to the individual is always shifting.  No one can find the proper line, and if there were a line it would forever change.  On the one hand, the power of the strongest element in social organization is always seeking to enlarge the province of the state.  On the other hand, the individual unit following the natural instincts for its development is reaching out for more freedom and life.  When the theorists in each camp manage to push so hard that both can no longer be maintained, the old organization of society breaks up into new units, immediately to re-form in some new way.