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
We have seen the process of the single group evolving. But
contemporaneously a thousand other unities are a-making. Every group
once become conscious of itself instinctively seeks other groups with
which to unite to form a larger whole. Alone it cannot be effective. As
individual progress depends upon the degree of interpenetration, so
group progress depends upon the interpenetration of group and group. For
convenience I speak of each group as a whole, but from a philosophical
point of view there is no whole, only an infinite striving for
wholeness, only the _principle_ of wholeness forever leading us on.
This is the social law: the law which connects neighborhood with
neighborhood. The reason we want neighborhood organization is not to
keep people within their neighborhoods but to get them out. The movement
for neighborhood organization is a deliberate effort to get people to
identify themselves actually, not sentimentally, with a larger and
larger collective unit than the neighborhood. We may be able through our
neighborhood group to learn the social process, to learn to evolve the
social will, but the question before us is whether we have enough
political genius to apply this method to city organization, national
organization, and international organization. City must join with city,
state with state, actually, not through party. Finally nation must join
with nation.
The recommendation of the Council of National Defense which has been
mentioned above would repay careful reading for the indications which
one finds in it of the double purpose of neighborhood organization. It
is definitely stated that the importance of the Community Council is in:
(1) initiating work to meet its own war needs; and (2) in making all its
local resources available for the nation. And again it is stated that:
(1) in a democracy local emergencies can best be met by local action;
and (2) that each local district should feel the duty of bearing its
full share of the national burden.
Thus our national government clearly sees and specifically states that
neighborhood organization is both for the neighborhood and for the
nation: that it looks in, it looks out. Thus that which we are coming to
understand as the true social process receives practical recognition in
government policy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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