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
All of us are being slowly, very slowly, purged of our particularistic
desires. The egotistic satisfaction of giving things away is going to be
replaced by the joy of owning things together. As our lives become more
and more intricately interwoven, more and more I come to suffer not
merely when I am undergoing personal suffering, more and more I come to
desire not only when I am feeling personal desires. This used to be
considered a fantastic idea not to be grasped by the plain man, but
every day the plain man is coming more and more to feel this, every day
the “claims” of others are becoming My desires. “Justice” is being
replaced by understanding. There are many people to-day who feel as
keenly the fact of child labor as if these children were their own. I
vote for prohibition, even although it does not in the least touch me,
because it does touch very closely the Me of which I am now coming into
realization.
The identification of self and others we see in the fact that we cannot
keep ourselves “good” in an evil world any more than we can keep
ourselves well in a world of disease. The method of moral hygiene as of
physical hygiene is social coöperation. We do not walk into the Kingdom
of Heaven one by one.
The exposition of the self-and-others fallacy has transformed the idea
of self-interest. Our interests are inextricably interwoven. The
question is not what is best for me or for you, but for all of us. My
interests are not less important to the world than yours; your interests
are not less important to the world than mine. If the “altruistic” man
is not a humbug, that is, if he really thinks his affairs of less
importance to the world than those of others, then there is certainly
something the matter with his life. He must raise his life to a point
where it is of as much value to the world as any one’s else.
The self-and-others fallacy has led directly to a conception which has
wrought much harm among us, namely, the identification of “others” with
“society” which leads the self outside society and brings us to one of
the most harmful of dualisms. The reason we are slow to understand the
matter of the subordination of the individual to society is because we
usually think of it as meaning the subordination of the individual to
“others,” whereas it does not at all, it means the subordination of the
individual to the whole of which he himself is a part. Such
subordination is an act of assertion; it is fraught with active power
and force; it affirms and accomplishes. We are often told to “surrender
our individuality.” To _claim_ our individuality is the one essential
claim we have on the universe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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