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
For we must remember when we say that the essence of individuality is
the relating of self to other difference, that difference is not
something static, something given, that it also is involved in the world
of becoming. This is what experience teaches me—that society needs my
difference, not as an absolute, but just so much difference as will
relate me. Differences develop within the social process and are united
through the social process. Difference which is not capable of relation
is eccentricity. Eccentricity, caprice, put me outside, bring anarchy;
true spontaneity, originality, belong not to chaos but to system. But
spontaneity must be coördinated; irrelevancy produces nothing, is
insanity. It is not my uniqueness which makes me of value to the whole
but my power of relating. The nut and the screw form a perfect
combination not because they are different, but because they exactly fit
into each other and together can perform a function which neither could
perform alone, or which neither could perform half of alone or any part
of alone. It is not that the significance of the nut and screw is
increased by their coming together, they have no significance at all
unless they do come together. The fact that they have to be different to
enter into any fruitful relation with each other is a matter of
derivative importance—derived from the work they do.
Another illustration is that of the specialist. It is not a knowledge of
his specialty which makes an expert of service to society, but his
insight into the relation of his specialty to the whole. Thus it implies
not less but more relation, because the entire value of that
specialization is that it is part of something. Instead of isolating him
and giving him a narrower life, it gives him at once a broader life
because it binds him more irrevocably to the whole. But the whole works
both ways: the specialist not only contributes to the whole, but all his
relations to the whole are embodied in his own particular work.
Thus difference is only a part of the life process. To exaggerate this
part led to the excessive and arrogant individualism of the nineteenth
century. It behooves us children of the twentieth century to search
diligently after the law of unity that we may effectively marshal and
range under its dominating sway all the varying diversities of life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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