The whole matter of fashion, especially of fashion in dress, might well
be discussed from this point of view. Although it has been the subject
of futile satire and protest so long as to seem hopeless, it is not so
unless we are prepared to admit that we are incapable of a real
self-expression in this part of life. Competent leadership, along with
the general growth of æsthetic culture and democratic sentiment, should
make this possible.
It is plain, also, that in any plan of reform of values through demand
the mind of women must have a great part. In so far as this mind seems
at present to fluctuate between conventionalism and anarchy, the cause,
perhaps, is that it lacks the guidance and discipline that might come
from the better organization of women as a social group. The working of
this should be analogous to that of the professional groups I have
cited, and should have a like power to raise the quality of the
pecuniary values which women control. The critical question here is,
will women, under conditions of freedom, develop a group consciousness
of their own, with high ideals of each function and power to discipline
the less responsible of their sex. It is hard to see how modern
civilization can dispense with something of this kind. We seem to have
abandoned compulsory discipline, and self-discipline is much needed to
take its place—or rather to do what the other could never have done:
make women full participants in democratic progress.
As regards a better pecuniary valuation of men, the same principles
hold, in general, as for other kinds of pecuniary progress. It calls for
the development of service values, along with the social organization
necessary to appreciate and define these and secure for them pecuniary
recognition. No social manipulation can be trusted to make people pay
high prices for poor service, nor will good service secure an adequate
reward without social structure to back it. The natural process is one
of the concomitant development, through a continuing group, of service
values and pecuniary appreciation.
Certainly we need a scientific and thoroughgoing cultivation of personal
productive power. This should include the study of potential capacity in
children, vocational guidance, practical training, and social culture.
We require also a practical eugenics, which shall diminish the
propagation of degenerate types and perhaps apply more searching tests
to immigrants. We need, in short, a comprehensive “scientific
management” of mankind, to the end of better personal opportunity and
social function in every possible line. But inseparable from this is the
whole question of democratic social development through the state and
other institutions, every phase of which should tend to improve the
general position, and through that the market power, of the unprivileged
masses of the people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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