Crowds: A Moving-Picture of DemocracyLee, Gerald Stanley
Philosophy
Crowds: A Moving-Picture of Democracy
Lee, Gerald Stanley
Crowds; Social problems
Just where to cut this opening, and just how to cut it in each man's
life--each man considered as a problem by himself--is the Labour
problem.
There are certain general principles that might be put down in passing.
To begin with, we must not feel ashamed to begin implacably with the
actual man just as he is, and with the wants and the motives that he
actually has. We should feel ashamed rather to begin in any other way.
It would not be bright or thoughtful to begin on him with motives he is
going to have; and it certainly would not be religious or worthy of us
to try to make him begin with ours. Perhaps ours are better--for us.
Perhaps, too, ours will be better for him when he is like us (if we can
give him any reason to want to be). In the meantime, what is there that
can honestly be called base in taking human nature as it is and in
allowing a sliding scale of motives in people? Starving people and
slaves, or people who are ugly and hateful, _i.e._, not really quite
bright toward others, who impute mean, inaccurate motives to them, can
only be patiently expected to have a very small area or even mote of
unselfishness at first. A cross-section of our society to-day represents
the entire geological formation of human nature for 40,000 years. We
need but look on the faces of the men about us as we go down the street.
All history is here this minute.
We wish that Labour had better motives. We wish to get our workmen to
understand us better and believe in us more and work for us harder.
We agree that we must begin with them, if we propose to do this, where
they are.
Where are they?
There are certain general observations that might seem to the point.
1. If a man is a sane and sound man and works hard, he must feel that
everything he does, every minute, is definitely connected with the main
through-train purpose in his life.
2. If the main purpose in his life is domestic and consists in having
his family live well and giving his children a chance, he must feel and
be absolutely sure when he is working better or working worse for his
employer that he is working better or worse for himself and for those
for whom he lives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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