The art of sound pictures (1930)

134 THE ART OF SOUND PICTURES is inducement. As a matter of fact, inducement is one of our most common emotions. In all social situations, where peace and harmony prevail, one person leads or controls the others by inducing them to follow his ideas and his plans for their welfare. Submission This emotion combines the attitude of alliance, or acceptance, with the attitude of inferiority. It is always pleasant. Both dominance and compliance are normally felt toward things or toward persons who are bent upon destroying or belittling us, and we do not, therefore, feel an attitude of alliance with them. Submission and inducement, however, are emotions aroused by people alone. A child feels an attitude of alliance with his mother, and he also feels inferior in strength to her. The alliance arises from the child’s knowledge that his mother does not wish to destroy him, but rather wishes to help him all she can. He submits, therefore, because she is superior in strength, knowledge, and judgment, and because she wants to help him, or is allied to him. That submission cannot be unpleasant should be borne in mind by every writer. It has long been thought that the slave, who is beaten and generally mistreated, is submissive. This is erroneous, since there is no alliance between the master and the slave, even though there is the element of inferiority. This situation is one of thwarted compliance, since the slave feels the master antagonistic and superior to him — but he cannot get away from the beatings, as he would if his compliance were successful. Every audience enjoys tremendously the mutual submission situations in which a child is allied with some