The National Being: Some Thoughts on an Irish PolityRussell, George William
Philosophy
The National Being: Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity
Russell, George William
Cooperation; Ireland -- Economic conditions; Ireland -- Politics and government
Other critics may say I would destroy the variety of civilization by the
inflexible application of a single idea. Well, I realize that the net
which is spread for Leviathan will not capture all the creatures of the
deep; and the complexity of human nature is such that it is impossible
to imagine a policy, however fitting in certain spheres of human
activity, which could be applied to the whole of life. What I think we
should aim at is making the co-operative idea fundamental in Irish life.
But to say fundamental is not to say absolute. Always there will be
enter rising persons--men of creative minds--who will break away from
the mass and who will insist, perhaps rightly, on an autocratic control
of the enterprises they found, which were made possible alone by
their genius, and which would not succeed unless every worker in the
enterprise was malleable by their will. It is unlikely that State action
will cease, or that any Government we may have will not respond to the
appeal of the people to do this, that, or the other for them which they
are too indolent to do for themselves, or which by the nature of things
only governments can undertake. For a principle to be fundamental in
a country does not mean that it must be absolute. I hope society in
Ireland will be organized that the idea of democratic control of its
economic life will so pervade Irish thought that it will be in the body
politic what the spinal column is to the body--the pillar on which it
rests, the strongest single factor in the body. Another illustration
may make still clearer my meaning. In a red sunsetting the glow is so
powerful that green hills, white houses, and blue waters, touched by
its light, assume a ruddy color, partly a local color, and partly a
reflected light from the sun. Now in the same way, what is most powerful
in society multiplies images and shadows of itself, and produces
harmonies with itself which are yet not identities. It is by a
predominating idea that nations achieve the practical unity of their
citizens, and national progress becomes possible. In the future
structure of society I have no doubt there will be elements to which the
socialist, the syndicalist, the capitalist, and the individualist will
have contributed. By degrees it will be discovered what enterprises
are best directed by the State, by municipalities, by groups, or by
individuals. But if the idea of democratic control is predominant, those
enterprises which are otherwise directed will yet meet the prevalent
mood by adopting the ideas of the treatment of the workers enforced in
democratically controlled enterprises, and will in every respect, except
control, make their standards equal. All the needles of being point to
the centres where power is most manifested. The effects of the French
revolution--a democratic upheaval--invaded men's minds everywhere. Even
the autocratically ruled States, hitherto careless about the people in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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