The new state : $b Group organization the solution of popular governmentFollett, Mary Parker
Science
The new state : $b Group organization the solution of popular government
Follett, Mary Parker
Democracy; Political participation; Social psychology; State, The
When we have come together and got acquainted with one another, then we
shall have an opportunity for learning the rules of the game—the game of
association which is the game of life. Certain organizations have sprung
up since 1914 with the avowed object of fighting war with love. If only
we knew how to love! I am ready to say to you this minute, “I love my
neighbors.” But all that I mean by it is that I have a vague feeling of
kindliness towards them. I have no idea how to do the actual deed. I
shall offend against the law of love within an hour. The love of our
fellow-men to be effective must be the love evolved from some actual
group relation. We talk of fellowship; we, puny separatists bristling
with a thousand unharmonized traits, with our assertive particularist
consciousness, think that all we have to do is to _decide_ on fellowship
as a delightful idea. But fellowship will be the slowest thing on earth
to create. An eager longing for it may help, but it can come into being
as a genuine part of our life only through a deep understanding of what
it really means.
Yet association is the impulse at the core of our being. The whole
social process is that of association, individual with individual, group
with group. Progress from one point of view is a continuously widening
of the area of association. Our modern civilization has simply overlaid
and falsified this primary instinct of life. But this is rapidly
changing. The most striking characteristic of the present day is that
people are doing more things together: they are coming together as never
before in labor organizations, in coöperative societies, in consumers’
leagues, in associations of employers and employed, in municipal
movements, for national purposes, etc. etc. We have the Men’s City Club,
the Women’s City Club; professional societies are multiplying over
night. The explanation sometimes given for this present tendency towards
union is that we are beginning to see the material advantages of
coöperation, but the root of the thing is far from utilitarian
advantage. Our happiness, our sense of living at all, is directly
dependent on our joining with others. We are lost, exiled, imprisoned
until we feel the joy of union.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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