Economic development -- Social aspects; Social evolution; Social problems; Work
The nature of Society is no mystery. Our relation to it is no mystery.
It is simple, orderly, healthy, and in its largest manifestations either
peacefully unconscious or sublimely happy. Every person who has by
blessed chance found his right place in social service, who has the
range of contact with his kind which he needs, and the range of activity
which he needs, may be as calmly happy as any browsing cow, as
ecstatically happy as any soaring lark.
What does any creature need for right growth?—nourishment, rest,
exercise. Society needs these too. We, in social relation as social
beings, need the social nourishment, rest, and exercise. Social
nourishment comes through contact with the world’s supplies, permanent
and current. We need to “stock up” in our common heritage of
information, of beauty and use and power. Whatever we need which lower
animals do not need is social nourishment. The desire to know of the
healthy young mind, the desire to travel, the desire to see people,
these are forms of our undying hunger for that which belongs to us as
human beings. When all of us, from our youth up, are put in easy
connection with the unlimited supplies of Society, we shall all be
socially nourished. Observe that these things _are not consumed_ while
they nourish, but remain continually refreshing as many as can partake
of them. Every member of Society should have free access to all social
products: art, music, literature, facilities of travel, and education;
and would so absorb his preferred nourishment as unerringly as do the
cells of the body from the whirling profusion offered by the blood.
Social rest is another imperative need of human beings, in proportion to
their humanness. The more highly specialised and intense the service of
the individual the more he needs to break off the connection and rest;
rest from being social; go back and be animal awhile; find in pure ease
and relaxation, in irrelative physical exercise, and in the beautiful
family relation (one of the safest and loveliest life-forms sheltered by
society), that complete rest which will enable him to return to his
social relation with renewed vigour.
Vacations of all sorts—the country home, the hunting trip—tell of this
need, and the nervous collapse of highly socialised types when denied it
is a common occurrence. Simple and primitive trades, if not excessive in
hours of labour, are far less exhausting. Breathing goes on
continuously, digesting with regular frequency, but thinking has to
rest. A healthy social life will allow for the natural periods of rest
for all its members.
Social exercise is but the use of our best and highest faculties to the
largest end. A Gladstone confined to directing envelopes would not be
exercising his social faculties to their full extent. Napoleon as a
_chauffeur_ might have killed quite a number of people, but would not
have been really satisfied. Exercise is life’s first law, and full
exercise is required for full development.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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