Crowds: A Moving-Picture of DemocracyLee, Gerald Stanley
Philosophy
Crowds: A Moving-Picture of Democracy
Lee, Gerald Stanley
Crowds; Social problems
A man who is cultivating the art of getting himself to be economical, or
of getting his wife to be economical, does not make a start by sitting
down with a pencil and making out a list, by concentrating his mind on
rows of things that he and his family must get along without. He knows a
better way. He goes downtown with his entire family, takes them into a
big shop and sits down with them and listens to a Steinway Grand he
cannot get. As he listens to it long enough, he thinks he will get it.
Then a subtle, spiritual change passes over him and over his family
while they listen. He would not have said before he started that sitting
down and thinking of things he could get along without--making lists in
his mind of things that he must not have--could ever be in this world a
happy, even an almost thrilling experience. But as a matter of fact, as
he sits by the piano and listens, he finds himself counting off
economies like strings of pearls, and he greets each new self-sacrifice
he can think of with a cheer. While the Steinway Grand fills the room
with melody all around him, there he actually is sitting, and having the
time of his life dreaming of the things he can get along without!
When he goes home, he goes home thinking. And the family all go home
thinking.
Then economy sets in. The reason most people make a failure of their
economy is that they are not artistic with it, they do not enjoy it.
They do not pick out anything to enjoy their economy with.
With some people an automobile would work better than a Steinway Grand
and there are as many ways, of course, of practising the Steinway Grand
principle in not being bad as there are people, but they all consist
apparently in selecting some big, positive thing that one wants to do,
which logically includes and bundles all together where they are
attended to in a lump, all the things that one ought not to do.
Most sins (every one who has ever tried them knows this) most sins are
not really worth bothering with, each in detail, even the not-doing them
and the most practical, firm method of getting them out of the way
(thousands of them at once, sometimes, with one hand) is to have
something so big to live for that all the things that would like to get
in the way, and would like to look important, look, when one thinks of
it, suddenly small.
The distinctive, preeminent, official business for the next four years,
of making small things in this country look small and of gently,
quietly making small men feel small, has been assigned by our people
recently, to Mr. Woodrow Wilson.
Now it naturally seems to some of us, the best way for Mr. Wilson's
government to do in getting the Trusts to give up lying and stealing, is
going to be to place before them quietly a few really big, interesting,
equally exciting things that Trusts can do, and then dare them, as in
some great game or tournament of skill--all the people looking on--dare
them, challenge them like great men, to do them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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